Tangled in Moonlight
by broken time
Summary: Now published under the title Milk Moon and undergoing a thorough revamp. [Abandoned.] KakaSaku
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Naruto & etc.

**Rating:** M (MA in later chapters).

**Pairing:** Hatake Kakashi x Haruno Sakura

**Comments:** Discarded and no longer being continued. Re-written as _Milk Moon_, with possible and probable duplication of some/most scenes, though they will be edited, I'm sure. I'm leaving this up on because I might actually want to go back and compare the two someday, then crack up laughing over how much of an idiot I am.

- - -

**Chapter One**

- - -

Sakura looked up at the sky - hands covered in some sticky, nasty, _reeking_ substance and face covered with white powder - and said (with great dignity), "I really - _really_, you hear? - don't like this one."

The sky - being, after all, _the sky_ - did not deign to answer her. Then again, the faint rumble and the dark clouds appearing in the sky could be a sign of its displeasure. She rested her hip against the table, blew out another frustrated breath. Swore softly at the mixture slowly turning to mush beneath her hands. A simple recipe, delicate in nature; something to let the time pass. Something necessary that she could turn to, using it as a flimsy shield and shakier excuse.

And even this fell apart around her.

Five jars stood sealed and ready before her, ten more empty and mocking as she stared. She counted again, as though the numbers changed between then and now.

_Two years ago today._

Her fingers shook lightly as she shoved the failure away, wiped her hands impatiently on a towel. Don't rush, don't worry, don't think about unnecessary things. Simple rules to follow, easy rules to break.

She poured her last bit of ingredients into her last clean bowl, swearing to pay attention this time.

_All in all, it should have been easy._

One, two, three. Let go, start all over.

_Just a simple courier mission, a little light guarding. It wasn't like they knew the rumors would come trickling in._

The pungent smell of medicine - bitter, harsh, sharp - had long since failed to keep her from half-dozing. Sakura stared blankly at her hands, methodically mixing and kneading, occasionally rubbing at a hardened piece of soon-to-be-ointment until it crumbled back into its parent mixture.

Tedious work - most of it was, really - but important. Little bits of miracle in tightly shut jars, there for the tired. The wounded.

The dying.

She flinched at the word, no matter that it was her own mind using it.

_It had been nothing more than an abandoned cottage; no suspicious papers, no lingering presence - just a place that had been left to die a greenery-choked death long ago. They had all relaxed then, breathed a little easier. Both relief and disappointment had attacked her in turns, but they were welcome after the constant dread tied to her heart._

_Welcome, until they disappeared and apprehension returned, gleefully pulling her back into that spiral._

Her hand slipped, knuckles slamming against the side of the porcelain bowl and dull pain flared anew.

Shaking off her reverie - unwanted memories, still holding enough force to twist her stomach painfully, bring bile easily to her mouth - Sakura gave up on her second badly mangled batch, bumpy and unusable and slowly turning into a mushy mess worthy of its predecessor.

"Are you done watching?" she asked, as though she wasn't frustrated and tired and angry and just completely at a loss.

"Are you done working?" he countered, wary and almost hesitant in his words.

Awkward.

Distant.

She felt her shoulders stiffen as she turned; stilted, polite, cool. "Did you need something, sensei?" And cursed herself for being this way.

He hesitated, as though words ran through his mind, rolled into his tongue, and were bit back after a moment of thought. Then he simply smiled - stiff, forced, unreal - and shook his head. "No, nothing at all."

Well then.

She grabbed a failure, pounded into it a bit more. Hardly necessary - it was already too far gone to be made into anything remotely useful - but it gave her something to do. Gave her a reason to turn her back on him for the hundredth time. Gave him a chance to escape before they had to face the problems between them.

They were good at avoiding that conversation. They'd had two years.

"We need to talk," he said when she thought he left and had let her shoulders droop a little, let her hands fall limp in the bowl, let out the little quivering sigh that she'd been holding in for all that time.

Well, shit. That broke tradition.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she lied blatantly, clattering her things as she set bowls aside. The same gambit never worked twice, and he certainly seemed to have his mind set.

The jerk.

The jerk.

The _jerk_.

"Sakura..."

She ignored the faint exasperation and slight plea curling into his words and stabbing at some place in the vicinity of her heart. It was, she figured, the same place her memories were stored.

"I'm _busy_," she replied, willing her hands not to shake.

She dropped the glass.

"Sakura, listen to me."

She ignored him.

"This has been going on far too long."

She resisted the urge for a childish snipe of "Oh, _really_?" and knelt to gather the broken porcelain.

"Sakura."

A shard sliced at her palm, drawing a thin line of blood.

"It wasn't your fault."

She sucked in a breath. Let it out again.

Tried - really, seriously tried - to ignore the hitch in her breathing, the unnaturally hard pounding of her heart. "Then who takes the blame, sensei?"

She glanced at his face. It was hard to tell his feelings behind that mask, hard to know if that was grief or worry or exasperation in his eye, hard to even look at him for that long moment.

"Will _you_ shoulder it?"

He glanced away, and she knew then that his lips were compressed, his eye was bleak, and there were hours and hours of nightmares probably somewhat identical to her own hidden behind that calm demeanor. Perhaps he wasn't so hard to figure out after all.

"Then, knowing how I feel - would _you_ let it go?"

- - -

He looked restlessly at the horizon, as though it would fall away and show him... Something. Something different, something important, something that would make it all click into place, smooth and easy.

But it didn't, and he knew it wouldn't.

"I'm working on it," he said, and the girl scoffed - or perhaps it was just an incredulous half-laugh, choked with tears she had never let fall.

He'd watched her, of course, as she stood there and hours passed. Watched as she went through batch after batch, only to come out with the smallest amounts of ointment ready to be sealed into a jar. Noticed the tense muscles, the jerky movements, the moments she would stop as though she wanted to look over her shoulder.

But that would show curiosity, interest, acknowledgement.

That would break their little game - a harsh, cruel, cold game, one neither had really started and neither could quite end.

_First it was the rush of attack, wind cutting across his face. He saw it; the hand tightening around the sword, muscles tensing to strike; knew he had to reach them before it happened. Knew he had to save her. Knew he couldn't fail._

_Then it was the weight of impact, and blood trickled down his arm. Blood that never should have spilled. An impact he should not have felt._

_She gasped in pain, and his eyes met hers._

He hated himself for falling into this pattern, for acting more like a child and less like her teacher, her confidante, her friend.

But that day, her eyes had been large and wide and accusing and shocked and hurt, and he never wanted to see that again. Never wanted to be the one to bring those emotions forward.

_She cradled that still body in her arms, as though he would begin breathing again - as though the blood were nothing more than decoration._

Then there had been through the sympathetic looks afterward, the curious glances, the soft whispers as they passed through the village. _They were his friends,_ everyone would say. _I see_, everyone would respond knowingly.

_She knelt by the coffin, lightly stroking the lid in silent goodbye. And even then, she didn't cry._

They didn't know a damn thing.

Kakashi blew out a breath, running his hands through his hair - distracted, irritated, frustrated. Worried, off-balance. Sakura was gaunt again, hardly eating, hardly stopping work long enough to breathe fresh air. It was like she fought against the reminders of time's passing by ignoring them all. She'd mastered the art in the past two years.

He looked at her - she glanced away, frowning, brows pulled together. He recognized the signs; fingers rubbing at her thighs, shoulders moving restlessly against her will. She was having her headaches again, probably plagued by memories, nightmares. Some part of him wanted to take the weight of sorrow from her.

Another part acknowledged grimly that she had to face it, even if she hated him for it.

- - -

_The tree stood strong as she leaned against it, oblivious to her situation, oblivious to her impending doom. Oblivious to her heart pounding - disbelieving, panicked, relieved, frightened._

_His eyes were different from anything she'd ever seen. Before they'd been aloof, cool, disdainful. Now they were something like cold and distant and... focused. Not on her. Not on this place. They saw something in the future, the goal he had yet to reach. They saw his victory, and they saw his pain._

_"Sasuke-kun..." Her voice broke as she begged him to return to the boy she knew. Pleaded with his eyes to flicker, just a little, with any sort of emotion. Recognition. Caring. But he simply stared her down, taking another step forward._

_"Come back," she whispered - pled, begged, argued. They've been looking for him, did he know? They wanted him back. Everyone wanted him to return. They'd help him get stronger; she'd do anything for him. They missed him, they loved him. She loved him. She still loved him._

_But her words were ignored, perhaps not even heard, and his sword was unsheathed._

_"Annoyances." He frowned - the faintest downard curve of his lips, a brooding line to his brow. "I left you all because of this drivel. Fight for your friends? Together we'll all become stronger? Don't bother." His fingers flexed lightly, his words flat, lilting in an unusual cadence, almost as though he were speaking without paying the slightest bit of attention._

_And even then, her heart leapt a little at the sound of his voice. Even when he spoke in a way totally alien. Even as he showed no intention of leaving her alone._

_"I should have killed you when I had the chance." Conversational, bland, regretting missed opportunities._

_Her heart skipped a bit, painfully, and pounded again in her chest. Slammed against her ribs, as though wanting to commit suicide. Wanting to burst with the pain._

_She knew, then - faced now with this new Sasuke, different and changed and nothing like her love, nothing like the boy, as though everything had been erased - that she was going to die. It is a simple thing, really. He wants to kill her, and right now she feels like she's dying. Why bother fighting?_

_Sakura knew tears were slipping, sliding down her cheeks. Knew that if he noticed them, he hardly cared - or perhaps considered them evidence of her sniveling weakness. She didn't even glance at the sword as the tip raised from the ground. Her eyes stayed on his. They never flickered, never changed, never even seemed to be paying attention, as if her death wouldn't even mean that much to him._

_She jumped forward then, angry, and there was pain, pain, ripping skin, muscle, cold steel, hot blood, stop, it hurts, HURTS, and then her arms were wrapped around his neck, and her flushed cheek was pressed hard against his and she was whispering, maybe praying, maybe only thinking, "I love you."_

_And she felt him shove her almost immediately away. Felt the sudden surge of pressure. The gust of wind._

_His eyes were glazing a little as she stared, his hand still pressed her chest - fingers stiff and hard and unyielding. Then it fell to his side, and he was saying something. She couldn't hear, but his lips were moving. Or maybe it was just his breathing. Then - perhaps it was slight movement, perhaps it was a sound - she looked over his shoulder._

_And stared into the eyes of her teacher._


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Naruto & etc.  
**Comments:** Discarded and no longer being continued. Re-written as _Milk Moon_, with possible and probable duplication of some/most scenes, though they will be edited, I'm sure. I'm leaving this up on because I might actually want to go back and compare the two someday, then crack up laughing over how much of an idiot I am.

- - -

**Chapter Two**

- - -

_All in all, it should have been easy. Just a simple courier mission, a little light guarding. It wasn't like they knew the rumors would come trickling in._

_They'd opted to search; if Orochimaru was truly here, it was their first priority. But then it had turned out to be nothing more than an abandoned cottage; no suspicious papers, no lingering presence - just a place that had been left to die a greenery-choked death long ago. They had all relaxed then, breathed a little easier. Both relief and disappointment had attacked her in turns, but they were welcome after the constant dread tied to her heart._

_Welcome, until they disappeared and apprehension returned, gleefully pulling her back into that spiral._

_A girl is missing, the villagers claimed. Someone took her. She was out shopping, she's a good girl. She's gone, help us find her. And without a word, there was the thought: Orochimaru, experiments, innocent bystanders caught in nefarious schemes._

_They'd spread out, began the search. Moved fast, stayed off the trails, and in that search for a missing girl, she'd found him._

_It was like he'd been waiting, or perhaps knew she was close. It had been all tears and begging and emotions she couldn't express. She was joyful, she was worried, she was wary. He'd brushed that all aside. All he wanted, he said, was her death._

_She was no use to him._

- - -

There was a dull throbbing in her shoulder, happily pounding in time with her headache and gleefully keeping her in a rather cranky mood. Sakura stared over his shoulder, fingers curled tensely around her now-empty cup. Their table was largely avoided by the waitress, who was intelligent enough to recognize uncomfortable silences.

Of course, now she was out of her tea (a convenient excuse for not saying a word) and the waitress was more than happy to give her undivided attention to the other tables. Where people were cheerful. And gave tips. Unthinking, she lifted her cup to her lips, then set it down quickly. Right. Empty.

"We haven't talked much in the past two years, have we?" Kakashi was the first to break their silence. Really, thinking on it, he always was.

"No," she agreed politely.

He sat back with a bit of a sigh, as though to say _So this is how it's going to be_.

"You could always order something to eat." He switched the subject and nudged one of the badly mauled menus a little closer. She frowned at the tattered corners; he'd taken the menu away before she could nervously tear them into little pieces.

But she didn't mention that, and simply began worrying at the corners again. She wasn't hungry.

"Salted pork, pot roast, chicken in lemon sauce?" He quoted items at random, apparently unperturbed by her silence. "Perhaps a salad with light dressing? How about soup?"

Sakura shifted in her seat, glancing toward him briefly. "This isn't a date, sensei."

His more jovial tone didn't falter. "Is there something wrong with a teacher taking his student out to dinner?" That earned another frown, her brows drawing together severely. Kakashi set the menu down, letting the false cheer fade from his words. "Then consider it a business lunch and eat. Your parents are worried about you again."

She flinched, feeling slightly affronted. Her issues were a _family_ matter. Her mother had no right—

Then again, really, she did.

"Salad, then. Light dressing."

He nodded and flagged down the waitress, who approached their table with a distinctly wary smile. Sakura could only feel relief when he didn't cast her any victorious smiles. Of course, he wouldn't, would he? It wasn't about winning or losing. It never had been. It was about her life. His. It was about death and living life thereafter.

Yet now, here they were. She sniped, ignored, pushed him as completely out of her life as possible, and he used to let her. Familiar guilt had her brooding as the order was completed – Kakashi ordered for her without hesitation, and even added to leave out the tomatos, please.

Her stomach lurched a bit at the thought. Tomatoes – red, ripe, plump and sweet. Tomatoes, his favorite food. Tomatoes, which once made her laugh and now made her gag. Sakura rubbed at her jaw, hating the metallic tang of bile, and looked almost balefully at her teacher as the waitress left.

"So? We're here now, aren't we? Talk." She'd followed him after his brisk order - _Come with me_ - and even sat at the table without saying much about his choice of location. If he wanted to have the long-overdue heart-to-heart chat in a busy (and slightly higher class) restaurant, she wouldn't argue. She didn't plan on saying much, anyway.

To her surprise, he simply sat back, looking comfortable and at ease. "You don't like being forced to talk, or forced to hear things you're not ready for. Talking now would be a waste, wouldn't it? And it would ruin what little appetite you have." He made a slightly dismissive gesture as she stared at him. "Would you rather I say it, then?"

"No," she replied quickly, uncomfortable now. Ill at ease. Unable to sit still, unable to look at one thing for very long. Her eyes flit over the room, resting briefly on familiar faces before sliding to the next. "No, that's okay."

But her words were hesitant and wary, and she missed the faintly satisfied smile that curved his lips.

- - -

_Some part of him decided that he follow behind her in case anything happened. He trusted her skills, he insisted. She was stronger now than before. She knew how to scout, and it was just a missing girl. There was no confirmation of enemy presence and in fact, evidence leaned in favor of false rumors. But there was that part of him that thought; if it's true. If it's true, she's in danger. If it's true, she'd fly straight into it without any thought. If it's true, she'd get herself killed._

_And when he slammed to a stop, saw her trapped against a tree – saw Sasuke advancing, with intent to kill – he'd known he only had moments. From what he'd heard, from what he'd seen, Sasuke would – could – kill his comrades._

_He couldn't take the chance that he would soften at the last moment and spare her. He couldn't take the chance that she would die because of his indecision. And so he attacked with all his strength, aimed with the intent of killing this boy/man who had been his most talented student. Aimed with the hope of saving his brightest._

_And, really, it shouldn't have landed; it should have been blocked, avoided. Kakashi knew his skill, and knew that Sasuke could only grow stronger. A sneak attack from behind would never work. Yet Sasuke had frozen in that moment, and before he could fully register the scene – Sakura's arms tight around his neck, the sobbed pledge – he hit. He broke through skin, muscle, bone. Heard the snap, the crush, and a soft gasp, and felt grief._

_Aim to kill, aim to save._

_In the end, he'd killed them both._

- - -

"Are you sure that's fresh?" he asked dubiously, taking his fork to poke at a piece of lettuce.

She frowned as little bits of gravy dropped into her salad, and promptly flicked them out of her bowl. If one hit her teacher, it certainly wasn't because she aimed. Perhaps she'd _hoped_ a little, but she hadn't aimed. "It's fresh. Will you stop poking at it?" Despite her very strong resolution to stay cool and distant and cold, irritation filtered through her words.

He stopped messing with her food and retreated to his own plate with a mournful little sigh, stabbing at an extra-fatty piece of gravy-smothered pork. Her stomach gnawed at her grumpily, blaming her for choosing something that would hardly brush her hunger aside.

"Stale lettuce isn't good for you. It probably completely negates the effect of light dressing." Kakashi began to twirl his food absently across his plate, and she found herself wanting to snap crankily that it was perfectly fine to take off his mask, thank you.

But she didn't, and pretended that she still didn't have that slight bit of curiosity. Feeling somewhat cheated out of her tragic angsting, Sakura nibbled on a piece of lettuce (it was, indeed, a little browned about the edges) and found herself watching the path of his fork. Up, around, make a little twirl in the middle and backtrack, one smooth movement to the other side, avoid the little french fry floating in gravy…

Her stomach upgraded from gnawing to outright chomping, and a few little pretzel-like twists. Perhaps her salad was browning a little, and perhaps her dressing was light and airy and had little substance at all, but she could smell the gravy – meat, fat, and all those enticing things like cholesterol – and it was _good_.

Damn it, whatever happened to things like rice and fish? Rice and fish were good. She could ignore things like rice and fish. They were everyday things, rice and fish. Why a restaurant like this, which specialized in foreign food?

She snapped at a crouton, crunching it loudly. Kakashi looked as though he were about to say something, then made up his mind. After a while and plenty of loud crunching, he lifted the much-traveled and probably very tired pork to her lips. "Hungry?"

She glared at him over the offering, then looked pointedly at her salad – where gravy happily dripped and dribbled, rendering it for the most part inedible.

"Well. I guess we'll just share mine, then?" he offered, and poked the fork a little closer.

And, ignoring all the little voices that told her she still had plenty of sulking time to do and her hips were going to double in size, Sakura chomped at it, chewed, swallowed. And leaned over to steal some more.

He nudged his plate a little closer to the center of the table, raising a brow. "You'll get fat from this, you know."

"And whose fault is that?" she returned snippishly, scoring another (much larger and mouth-stuffing) bite. She chewed a little more slowly this time, wariness returning at the faint smile dancing across his lips and the amusement in his eye. This was ridiculous – bickering like old times, as though there hadn't been days – months, years – of cold silence between them.

And somehow he'd dragged her into it all-unsuspecting.

Then again, it wasn't as though either of them had _tried_ to put up that unscalable wall. She'd never blamed him for Sasuke's death, and he'd never blamed her. He'd been the one to tell Naruto what had happened, been the one to purposely block her from seeing the boy's face – white and strained and disbelieving. He'd put his hand on her shoulder as she huddled against the ground, hands tight over her ears as Naruto screamed into the air – frustrated, angry, grieving. And even Naruto had never laid blame, on either of them. He still laughed with Kakashi, argued with Kakashi, bugged training out of Kakashi. He still followed Sakura around, annoyed Sakura, pestered Sakura.

Three years ago, when Naruto left Konoha (For training, he'd explained with a wide smile) Sakura would have easily said he was the most immature of them all. A little over two years ago, before the easy mission that had gone straight to hell, she would have said he was as annoying as ever, even after eight months away from Konoha and specialized training. And two years ago today, she would have bitterly admitted that he was a better friend to Sasuke than she.

He, at least, had shed tears. He, at least, had been unafraid to cry. He, at least, had accepted the unfairness of life.

Food was nothing more than a lump in her throat as she tried to swallow, eyes dark with her thoughts. "Has Naruto come back yet?" she asked soberly, twirling her fork absently in her fingers.

"He's still on a mission." Kakashi answered without hesitation, pulling down his mask and taking a bite for himself.

She stared at him blankly, at first not realizing what bothered her. Her fork continued to twirl as her brows drew together in deep thought, her mind struggled to push off the cobwebs of the past.

Then she let out the faintest squeak and pointed the shaking utensil at him.

"You have a _face_," she blurted.

- - -

Kakashi continued to chew, staring at her blandly. Watched curiously as her cheeks turned becomingly pink and she glanced away, then toward him again, then away. "Normally we have faces, yes." His this-is-nothing-unsual tone had her cheeks turning a little pinker, and he was satisfied to see that she had jumped back into the present and away from the past. Around him, it was always the past, always unvoiced guilt. But he'd heard her laughing at something Tsunade said when she never realized he was near, or shouting at Naruto when he overstayed his welcome on her balcony. He'd seen her silent competitions with Ino whenever they passed by each other, her smiles and waves and pleasant hellos for anyone she recognized.

Really, she had adjusted well for someone who had never actually faced her grief. But last year, and this year, she'd grown quieter as the date came about. Ate little, slept worse.

And this was the first time in two years she acted naturally around him. He wanted to hold that little spot of happiness close, box it up so he could take it home.

To be sure, the feeling was unusual (he would probably call it rather stalker-like in nature), but it was becoming more and more familiar to him. He felt it every time he saw her smile directed elsewhere, every time she snuggled up to her father's side as they walked to the market, every time she laughed at his jokes, lame and old and worn, every time she touched Naruto's shoulder to get his attention when she spoke.

He really, really hated feeling like that, which was probably why he'd let her distance herself further. Why he'd never talked to her earlier. Why he'd been a bit of a jerk around her.

So he ate as though nothing was the matter, and she continued to stare at him with wide eyes – glancing away whenever their gazes met, then sliding back again almost guiltily when he concentrated on his food once more.

- - -

Sakura sat self-consciously, wanting desperately to stop staring and unable to all the same. She'd known he had a scar (she'd seen it before, after all), but she never realized he had another scar directly above his lip, one that intrigued her for no real reason. She realized she wanted to hear the story of how it came about.

Somehow she was hardly surprised that he had a technically handsome face. Perhaps she would have been more interested in that fact earlier, but now it was the little scar that caught her eye, and the quirk of his lips as he smiled. She knew he was amused at her scrutiny, because everyone so often he'd meet her eyes to force her to look away and blush. It made her feel like the deviant student who could never hide anything from her teacher.

Faintly, it also reminded her of the boys who loved to tease.

"Why do you wear it?" she finally asked, giving in to curiosity. Some part of her had an inkling, and she wondered if he'd tell her.

He seemed to toss about stories in his head – every time she'd asked before, he'd given her an outrageous lie – before spearing a fry. "Because of the scar."

She tilted her head slightly. "How did you get it?"

He paused then, completely still and almost – for a moment – dangerous. She'd gone a little too far, stepped a bit too hard. And she didn't regret it a bit. He'd done the same to her, after all.

"If you talk to me, I'll tell you the whole story." He looked at her then, brooding – his mouth was thin and almost tight, and some part of her thought _So this is what it looks like_.

Sakura absently poked at a bit of her discarded salad. "I don't think I want to know, after all," she muttered honestly.

He smiled – a false one, with no real cheer. She found it amazing that she could read him this easily when he wasn't hiding. "Yeah, I didn't think so." And neither of them fought as that uncomfortable silence fell over them again.

- - -

"Thank you for dinner," she said stiffly, looking over his shoulder. "I'm sorry I had to eat half of yours."

"I'm the one that ruined yours, Sakura." He was resigned, tired. "Don't worry about it."

"I'm sorry," she repeated stubbornly, staring more deliberately at a dark window in the house across the street.

He nodded then, almost choppily, and she knew his lips were thinned behind his mask. So she finally looked at him, straight at him, lips trembling a bit with what she wanted to say. Had to say. Had to admit, despite how she'd hidden that secret for so long. "And…"

He looked at her impassively, though she thought she saw the faintest bit of curiosity.

"…thank you," she whispered.

"You already gave your thanks." He spoke just a bit more gently, and she shook her head angrily.

Wanted to stamp her foot. Wanted to glare him into understanding it all. Wanted desperately that he would just _know_, and spare her the telling. "For coming to save me. That night." A muscle jerked in her cheek, and something shuttered in his eye – dark now, hiding everything from her.

"I. Always felt that." Breathe, damn it, _breathe_. "I shouldn't… have. Felt it. Relief." A choppy motion of her hand, and he still stood there like a damn statue. "I didn't want to die," she admitted then, voice hoarse with guilt. With memories. "The first thing I thought was, _I'm safe_. The second was that… he. That he." Uncomfortable, glancing away, unable to bare her soul any farther. "That he was gone."

Breathe, breathe, _breathe_.

"He was gone and I – what did I do? I thought, I'm alive. I'm alive and I'm not dying." She looked at him then, miserable. "Was my love for him just that shallow, sensei?"

- - -

_We've gone over this several times, Kakashi replies flatly. I don't know why he pushed Sakura away and never saved himself._

_Maybe it was because the sword hindered him? The question comes from behind the masks._

_If it hindered him, he would never have been able to take it completely out of her shoulder. It would have still been inside her, instead of on the ground._

_Perhaps he never intended to kill her? This time it is another, questioning, probing._

_He looks at them both, distant and cold and unfriendly. I wouldn't know, he replies. From what I could see, he intended her death._

_What was the relationship between these two?_

_She loves him._

_And he?_

_I don't know. A friend? Perhaps it was more? He never showed much interest, but he cared._

_Enough to save her?_

_Perhaps._

_Your report states that you thought you killed them both._

_I thought I did. I never realized he pushed her away._

_Why not?_

_It happened when I couldn't see, right before I struck._

_So he knew you were attacking?_

_Kakashi looks at them coldly. Why don't you ask him? he suggests, unkindly._


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Naruto, and if I did, it wouldn't be fanfiction anymore.  
**Comments:** Discarded and no longer being continued. Re-written as _Milk Moon_, with possible and probable duplication of some/most scenes, though they will be edited, I'm sure. I'm leaving this up on because I might actually want to go back and compare the two someday, then crack up laughing over how much of an idiot I am.

- - -

**Chapter Three**

- - -

"Was my love for him just that shallow, sensei?" she asked, and he was slammed by the emotion threading unsteadily through her voice, the rampant misery and confusion and guilt and worry that she'd held in so long.

For all this time, he had thought she felt latent anger over the incident, guilt over her own involvement, or at least an inability to cope with her teacher's darker side. He'd always thought the root of the problem lay within him and his inability to communicate with his most emotional student, and now he was realizing - with a lot of guilt - that he had never really _thought_ about it at all.

He'd never truly sat and wondered what she had felt during that time. He'd never sat and pondered on what would have gone through her mind, or how she would feel about her own thoughts, or even considered that she'd felt anything other than horror and grief and guilt at possibly diverting Sasuke at such a crucial moment.

And so Kakashi wracked his brain for the right words to tell her, the words she was so desperately looking for.

"Your love was never shallow," he replied slowly, raising a hand to her cheek gently. She leaned against it just a little, closing her eyes, and the tear that fell jerked at his conscience. "Sakura, he saved you at that moment. You realize that, don't you?"

He felt the slight nod she gave as faint movement against his palm. "He knew I was there, and he knew I attacked with the intent to kill him." He hated the blunt words, the honest truth behind them, and the pain they caused her; he could see it in the faint flicker of her eyelids and the slight tensing of her shoulders. "If he wanted to live, he could have easily evaded the attack. With the right timing, I would have killed you, instead." Her eyes snapped open at that, and he smiled grimly. "I knew the risks, and I'm sorry I made a decision that put you in danger."

Gently brushing away a tear with his thumb, he pulled her closer and ran another hand over her hair in an attempt to soothe and comfort. She stiffened at first, eyes snapping open in surprise - then she shuddered, hiccupped a little, and took another step forward to rest her forehead against his chest as her tears continued to fall, first dripping, then streaming down her cheeks. He patted the top of her head awkwardly. "But instead of saving himself, he pushed you away. I'd never noticed that you lunged toward him" - here she stiffened again, stepped back just a little, closed her eyes and gave an indelicate snuffle, rubbing hard at her cheeks - "and if he hadn't done that, I would have killed you both. I thought I did," he added grimly, remembering briefly the emotions - pain, grief, guilt, anger, and all those second thoughts and _what if I did this_ - and the feel of skin and bone breaking way easily beneath his hand, the feel of blood and life and the knowledge of death. He'd felt all those things before, felt all the heavy conscience that came with killing and occasionally mild horror as he realized he felt nothing at all, but he'd never quite felt them all as he had then.

"He gave you this life you are living now." Here he stepped back, as she straightened just a little. "The very life," he added softly, "that he wanted to take away."

"But I--"

Kakashi raised his voice slightly, overriding her words. "He wanted you to live at that moment. Maybe he didn't know what he was doing. Maybe he didn't really think about it, and maybe he did. But that doesn't change the outcome, and you can never change those moments." Finally he let his hand fall from her cheek, and he curled his fingers into his palm tightly, almost as though he missed the warmth of her skin. "I can't tell you to stop feeling the guilt, but I can tell you that I've thought the same thing. That first thought of life, before realizing everything that's been lost."

She looked almost startled at the bleak tone to his words, and he simply admitted, "It never grows any easier, Sakura."

- - -

Sunlight streamed through her window, curled tentative fingers along the edge of her bed, then crawled sneakily across the blankets and settled in a way that guaranteed she would have that irritating spot of light intrude on her sleep even though she was actually half-awake anyway. She tried to ignore it for a while, telling herself first that it wasn't there then that it was actually just a trick her eyelids were playing on her, but of course it didn't leave and of course she couldn't really drift off with it bugging her.

Sakura groaned, feeling raw, torn, picked apart and quickly pieced back together, with the edges jagged and not quite smoothly fitting. In general, she felt like shit, and she probably looked like it, too. Her heart, at least, didn't quite feel as though it were ripped out of her chest and some part of her realized without completely tearing up inside that she hadn't gone to visit Sasuke's grave last night. Between this, that, the other thing and Kakashi-sensei's words she couldn't quite remember but soothed her anyway, she'd simply staggered home in the late afternoon and curled up in bed like a wounded animal.

Sakura groaned again, more for the satisfaction of complaining than anything else, and rolled over reluctantly, pushing her hair out of her face and squinting at the ceiling. How long had she slept? For ages, apparently, since the sun was up and she'd fallen asleep before the sun went down. Raising her head tentatively, Sakura bit back a more real and immediate whimper of pain; her head was pounding and fuzzy and heavy with sleep, complaining over her abuse of yesterday and oversleep this morning.

She curled and uncurled her fingers experimentally, somehow unsurprised when she found they were a little swollen and didn't quite close the way she wanted them to. There was an ache somewhere in the vicinity of behind her left knee, and her back twinged in snippy irritation with her every moment.

Yeah, she was feeling _just fine_.

A glance at the clock told her (surprise, surprise) that it was twelve forty-three in the afternoon and that her alarm was, in fact, on. Apparently she'd slept through the raucous squawking, which was surprising; without pressing her favorite little snooze button, it would shrill for easily two hours, and she'd never slept through it before. Of course, there was always a first for everything, and Sakura had gone through plenty of firsts yesterday.

_Though technically, it's hardly my first time crying all over him. And it's certainly not his first time seeing me with puffy eyes, though it might have been the first time I was incoherently blabbering nothing but feeling, not caring if it even made sense._

She couldn't even begin to recall anything she said last night, though she knew that her heart felt lighter than it had in a long time. She'd admitted her worst little secret, the one she couldn't even think of in the safety of her own mind, and he hadn't turned away. He hadn't been disgusted, hadn't told her what a horrible person she was, and had instead stood there and spoke of...

Of something that had taken all that uncertainty and guilt and smoothed it over. She just couldn't remember any of it.

"Sakura?"

The girl blinked in surprise, then rolled to her other side, squinting at the doorway. "Mama?" she asked hoarsely.

"Are you awake, darling?" Worried, her mother knelt beside her bed and touched her forehead. "Your father's worried since you slept so long."

"Mmmm," she replied intelligently, and stretched - hands raised above her head and toes curling with the pain of almost-cramps in her calves. "I'm okay, Mom. Did I really sleep that long?"

"You did," she confirmed, smiling faintly. "I was starting to think you were going to turn into Sleeping Beauty and never wake up." Very gently, those caring hands brushed her daughter's hair back. "You have a visitor, dear."

Sakura continued to stretch, feeling her shoulder pop and her ankle twinge just a little before relaxing her sleepy muscles. The faintly overstretched and achy feeling in her shoulders had her rubbing at them absently as she finally sat up in bed, realizing for the first time that she was still fully dressed from yesterday. "Who is it?" she finally asked, fighting a yawn.

"It's Ino, dear. Isn't it sweet for her to come visit? You both never seem to have time for each other anymore. I'll bring some tea for the both of you, so relax and have fun chatting, will you?"

Before Sakura could point out that she didn't _want_ that girl to visit and wanted that girl to be kicked out of her house and that the little warmth that entered her heart had _nothing_ to do with that girl visiting, her mother had bustled out the door with a cheerful, "She's up now!", completely oblivious to her daughter's inner thoughts.

So instead of getting her mother on her side (which would have been a futile effort anyway), Sakura slumped back against her pillows and attempted to look grumpy, which didn't take all that much effort at all to do.

"You look like shit," her former best friend and current rival informed her in a rather smug tone from the safety of the doorway.

"Why did _you_ come here?" was her rather rudely spoken response.

"It wasn't like I came because I wanted to." Ino finally deigned to step into the room and took the time to look around curiously. The last time she'd come to the Haruno household had been several years ago, and a girl's bedroom does tend to have interesting little changes in that time. "Mother was worried because you didn't come for your flowers."

Sakura closed her mouth on a sharp retort; Ino's mother certainly didn't deserve her annoyance. "Tell her I'm sorry and thank you."

"I left the flowers downstairs." Finally the blonde stopped in front of the dresser, running a finger lightly down the side of a picture frame. "You still have his pictures everywhere, don't you?"

"Of course." She shifted uncomfortably at the question, glancing out the window. Was it silly for her to have pictures of Sasuke still decorating her room? Usually even an obsessive crush would eventually be let go of after someone's death, right?

But then again, he had always been more than a crush. Sakura had loved him, but beyond than that she had also been his friend, his teammate, his temporary confidante. She had shared that secret when he wanted none others to know of it. And she had known he would walk away, had met him knowing he would leave.

The tears came with little warning, and she rubbed at her eyes vigorously. Damn, she'd woken up with everything feeling distant, everything feeling like it was starting to settle – and now she was crying.

Then again, that was better than she had been doing.

"Hey. You can cry, you know?"

She glanced up, startled at the words. Ino was resting against the dresser and looking out the window, as though Sakura weren't even there.

"You can cry," she repeated quietly. "You've always been a crybaby, and it's weird for you to stop now, anyway, right? I don't think anyone's going to blame you. You're not the only one who's grieving. We've all been there, we all understand."

Sakura drew up her knees and rested her forehead against them, shoulders shaking with the force of the tears that came then. She sobbed and wailed and hiccuped and snuffled unbecomingly and she _cried_, really cried, really _grieved_ and really, really began to let things go just a little while still clinging to them desperately. She sobbed her thanks, muffled and garbled and hardly understandable through it all, and Ino just stood there like a statue, a witness who didn't fight her own tears or the grief that welled again in her chest.

"He always sat there like nothing else really mattered, or like school was just an annoying interruption. I guess that's why we all started looking at him." Ino closed her eyes briefly, remember those days of childhood when the slightest thing he said was the highlight of their day, and continued speaking in that reminiscent tone, as though she wasn't crying at all. "We all loved him too, though maybe you loved him most of all."

Sakura rocked herself gently, sniffling at the tears, and when she spoke her voice was hoarse and raw and almost broken with memories. "I was so excited to see him every day that I didn't even sleep the night before our first training session together." She stopped, forced herself to breathe. Shuddered with all that emotion still high in her. "Then I was excited because I got good mornings and good-byes. They were all I cared about. If he didn't say much in the morning, I was depressed all afternoon. If he didn't say good night, I couldn't sleep until I saw him in the morning. That's all I wanted - I know, isn't it stupid? All I wanted to do was see his face, even if he didn't care about me at all. I was just closer to him than you were. That's the only difference."

"But he supported you." Ino rubbed the tears from her face, took a deep breath. This impromptu talk, the comforting she offered; all she had _wanted_ was to leave the flowers and go, but her natural curiosity and worry over the girl who was, really, still a friend - an odd, estranged friend, but a friend nonetheless - had her walking up the stairs with butterflies in her belly. "You became friends, and he cared about you. It's only natural that you'd love him a little more than the rest of us." She struggled for the words, then gave up and simply spoke, hoping that she wouldn't come across as an idiot, hoping that it would help just a little. "We've all let him go, you know? He's our past now. He's been our past for years, since he wasn't a part of our lives. But you - you lived and breathed his name, and you never gave up hope, and you always _believed_."

"Believing wasn't good enough." Sakura closed her eyes - hot, wet, bruised - and tilted her head just a little, as though she could hear his voice again. How many different ways had he called her name? Indifferent, irritated, insistently to get her attention, curious, condescending. Then there were her dreams, where they were worried and terrified and desperate, as though he wanted to save her from something. And, again, that cold and flat way she had heard him say it last. "It didn't bring him back to me." _It killed him._

"From what I hear, it did." A soft admission, almost reluctant, as though she didn't quite want to share that secret but desperately needed to.

Sakura glanced up, a little hopeful, a little derisive, a little angry. "He's _dead_, damn it. He's not fucking coming back."

"Yeah, but he saved you, right?" Ino raised a hand, curled her fingers into her palm as though to grasp something elusive. "Doesn't that mean he thought you were a little more important?"

And it was like Kakashi was saying something to her again, and it soothed her just a little, reminded her of yesterday. Sakura laughed a bit brokenly, smiled crookedly at her friend - who was looking at her now, really looking, and not pretending that she didn't care. Just for today, just for now, they could tear down those walls. Tomorrow they would be back to normal and nobody would be the wiser. "Yeah. Wasn't he an idiot?"

They both shared a smile tenderly bittersweet, before glancing away from each other once again and lapsing into a silence that was more comfortable and less tense. Sakura snuggled a bit further under the covers and Ino continued to walk through the room, pausing to glance over the pictures. It could have been five minutes or it could have been hours before Ino finally left, barely exchanging five more words in that time, and Sakura realized then how empty and lonely her room had been for so long. Suddenly energized after the lethargy of a crying bout, she started picking up various pictures and tenderly placing them to the side. _It's not that I want to forget him,_ she told herself gently as her fingers shook and little tears escaped her eyes again. _I just want to keep those happy memories._

Sakura grabbed at the pictures in a way that seemed nearly indiscriminate - _that one_, with Sasuke gazing broodingly at nothing in particular; it had been just a normal summer day. Then there was the one on her dresser with him frowning down at a book, perhaps studying or perhaps just being as taciturn and coolly solitary as always. She had another of his back as he walked home with that confident stride and complete disregard for those around him, and her heart hiccuped a little at the memories it evoked. His back was always turned toward her, until she had stepped close enough to touch his arm and almost walk beside him. It wasn't something quite measured in terms of strength, but of bonds and friendship and trust.

Sakura ran a finger gently down his profile on yet another picture, this one taped to the inside of her closet door. She smiled faintly; he was looking sour and put out again, and he probably realized his picture was being taken. That was the Sasuke she had fallen in love with; it was the Sasuke she'd watched get peeled away just a little, layer by layer. She'd never gotten closer to the center, but she had been closer than she ever thought she would be.

Then there was the one picture she had of him, alone, head-on. He didn't quite look angry or irritated; he simply looked as like himself, and looked straight into the camera with the faintest hint of a smirk. It was the picture she had always cuddled to her chest as she rolled around on her bed with excitement over a word, a glance, an accidental brush of their shoulders. It was the one that she had stared at mooningly at nights, had fallen asleep to on her nightstand.

It was the one she'd eventually replaced with a picture of the entire team - and it hadn't been her idea at all. Her mother had pointed out and nagged enough times until Sakura had finally given in and placed Sasuke in her second cherished position on her desk, where she could see him from any part of her room.

She hesitated before picking it up and placing it in what she considered her "memories" pile, and felt guilt twist inside of her. The only picture left was the one by her bed, where they all seemed happy and carefree and normal.

She left it there.

- - -

He stared at the cans littered all over, some half-full, others half-empty. He was still irritatingly sober, which he really tried not to think about, damn alcohol tolerance anyway. Then again, if he was really trying to get drunk, _all_ of those cans would have been the beer stashed in his fridge, instead of only four or five of them being that tantalizing silver of _I'm beer, drink me, drown in me_.

Far from believing that alcohol is the cure for all sorrow, but wanting desperately to be a believer for a night or two, Kakashi felt that restless frustration and the faint fuzziness of thought that accompanied being up for far too long thinking of one thing (_Sakura's heaving shoulders, her frail strength as she clung to him desperately, crying harder than he'd seen from her)_ and telling himself not to _(I hated you, I really hated you, I wanted to hate you so badly. But I couldn't, because I was so thankful for you, and where does that put him? What should I feel, then?)_.

"So, Sasuke." He leaned back against the simple marker, slightly off to the side and alone in the Uchiha family plot. It was an unnerving, lonely, cold place. "How's it going where you're at?"

Of course there was no answer - he never expected one - but there was something about having a human voice speaking in a place like this, even if it was his own.

"She's crying over you. She's a damn faucet that won't ever turn off." He grabbed at a can - orange juice - and idly twirled it, needing something to occupy his hands. How long had he been sitting here now? All morning.

When had he come here before? Only once, with Naruto and Sakura. He had never come back again. Maybe it was the guilt, and maybe it was just his inability to visit two dead people every day, but he'd never found himself wandering here. Never found himself needing to be here.

"Damn sight I am," he muttered, and sighed. "If she heard me swearing, she'd probably fall over in shock. She's that kind of girl, Sakura is. Everyone's who they are, and she doesn't really notice much change." His lips quirked slightly. "I guess that's what's endearing about her. That's what you liked about her, too, isn't it? You're evil and hell-bent on killing her, yet she still loves you that much. Is that what went through your mind, then? Did you even think about her at all?" His lips tightened, and he rubbed hard at the left side of his face, normally covered by his mask. She'd asked about it, and for a moment he'd found himself wanting to tell her, despite all the baggage that came with the telling. How would she look at him after hearing it? Would she look at him with pity, with horror, with uncertainty? He didn't want to see that--

_Shit._

He shook his head, swore softly beneath his breath. He was thinking oddly again, considering her more as Sakura than as the little girl he trained. A student, that's what she was; just a student, nothing more. A student with a hell of a lot of problems tied around him, but just a student. _Just a student_, damn it, so why did he keep thinking about holding her close as she cried? Why did he think about how much she still, still, _still_ thought about Sasuke, and only Sasuke? Why did he hate that she cried, though he had wanted her to?

She's a _student_.

But at the same time, she was growing into a woman.

Damn.

Even his thoughts were starting to swear, and he couldn't even begin to guess at what would slip if someone tried to talk to him right now, with his loose tongue and unruly thoughts.

"She deserves better than this." Very carefully, Kakashi set the can down before pushing to his feet, forcefully shaking that fog out of his thoughts, his mind. "She should have never been caught up in everything. And I bet you realize that, don't you?" He turned now, resting a hand against the marker with a sigh. "She's too sweet to be tainted by this life, yet we're the ones that did it to her. But you're gone, and now I have to clean it all up." He took a breath, let his muscles relax. Rubbed again at his face, unused to the cold wind that brushed against it. "Yeah, what a pair we were."

"Sensei?"

Kakashi jerked in surprise, never having heard someone come close, then stiffened. Sakura held flowers gingerly in her arms, and her brows were furrowed with something like curious worry. "Sensei, what are you doing here?"

He scratched at his head, silently wincing as her eyes traveled from him, to the marker, to the multitude of cans that (at least) were carefully set upright along the grass. "I figured it was about time for me to visit," he half-lied, and nodded slightly to the offering she brought. "You didn't come last night?"

"No." She stepped around him and took the dead flowers out of the vase that was already there, then carefully replaced them with the new ones she brought. "I was too tired, honestly."

"Well, that's understandable," he muttered awkwardly, wondering if he should give her space. "I have some--"

"Stay a little, will you, sensei?" She didn't glance at him as she reached up and grabbed at his hand, clinging tightly. "I think he'll be happy to see us here. Don't you think?"

Kakashi considered his previous almost-jealous words and rather ill-mannered behavior - a teacher shouldn't come and drink at his student's headstone, especially he was the one to kill that student, and also probably shouldn't swear while he worked out his own thoughts - and wondered if that was really true. But he stayed, and grasped her hand loosely, wondering at how small and cold and fragile and strong it felt in his.

He'd held her hand before - helping her up from unstable footing, politely pulling her out of the way of a stray kunai - but it was never something personal like this, and he felt humbled and at the same time a ridiculously bad person. She was holding _her teacher's_ hand, and he was holding _Sakura's_ hand, which was probably not the way it was supposed to be.

Silently, he cursed those two-and-a-half beers he'd had (the rest of the beer, thankfully, was still in those opened cans on the ground), because even though he felt sober, he wasn't at all.

"Hey, Sasuke-kun." Her words were soft, gentle, conversational. "I'm sorry I didn't come here last night. I was going to, though." Her hand tightened in his, and Kakashi politely looked away. "Hey, you know? Ino came over today. We talked about you." She was struggling not to let the tears fall, and her nails were digging into the back of his hand. "I really missed you when we did. Really."

She blew out a little breath, then laughed shakily. "But, you know, I'm getting better. Don't worry about me up there, okay? If you're worrying, anyway." Pause. "I... was cleaning up my room today. I took your pictures down - oh, but don't worry, it's not because I don't care. I just thought that I needed to stop moping. We should all live happy for you, right?" Her lips trembled a little, and Kakashi _knew_ they were, even though he wasn't looking at her. "I do have one picture, though. I think you'd be proud. It's our picture, our team's. Me and you... and Naruto and sensei, we're all there. So you're all together. You're not alone." She bit her lip and stood up slowly. "All the other pictures were just you. They didn't really have anyone else in them, and I thought you might be lonely if I remembered you like that."

Kakashi felt his gut twist at her innocent words, even as he wondered jadedly if Sasuke even cared. Then he firmly ignored the little jealousy twinges and waited for her to finish, thinking that he really shouldn't drink. Ever.

"So. I just wanted to let you know, I guess." Sakura brushed her free hand tenderly over the cold stone. "I'll come by more often and change out the flowers for you, all right?"

She was still gripping his hand, hard, and Kakashi squeezed hers gently. "I'm sure he'd like that, Sakura." And perhaps the words felt like ash on his tongue, but the smile she gave him made it worth it.

"Are you ready?" she asked, finally letting go.

"For what?" But she was already picking up the cans - she gave the beer a rather doubtful look, and he had to fight a smile - and he bent down to help her, considering that it was originally _his_ mess, after all.

Then she paused and turned to look at him, brows furrowed and teeth nibbling at her lower lip thoughtfully. "I don't know. I just figured we'd leave together. Um, bad idea?"

"No, not exactly--" _Yes, very bad_ "--but I have some work to get done tonight," he added piously, soothing his conscience by putting that extra space between them. Perhaps she felt warm and safe and comforted around him, but he - horrible, tired, and just the tiniest bit jealous for no real reason at all - wasn't quite sure he could keep from doing something.

Oh, nothing _bad_ - despite his thoughts roaming a little oddly, he was far from some sort of lech - but there were always things like an inappropriate joke or two (hardly any danger of happening) or some caustic remark about Sasuke slipping before he could catch it (high possibility of happening). And, well, he needed sleep. A lot of it, to wash away all these unusual thoughts that he'd been having, because _Sakura still loved Sasuke, and she's nothing more than a student_. So there.

"Oh, I see." Her face fell a little, and he looked away before he could say something stupid. Like, _Well, if you wanted to have dinner, I'm sure I could make time_. That sounded far too much like a date, and dates just. Weren't. Happening.

Period.

"Well, that's all right." Sakura gave him a crooked little smile. "I was just thinking that we haven't had much time together lately."

_Very true, which was probably better for my sanity._ "Well, we know the reason for that," he replied blandly, and she laughed softly. He fought the urge to pull her close and squeeze her with a hug, much like he would to a teddy bear.

"Yeah, we do." She hesitated, then smiled - hesitant, hopeful. "So we're still friends?"

_Friends? What about teacher and student?_ "We always were, Sakura," he replied semi-honestly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Naruto, and if I did, it wouldn't be fanfiction anymore.  
**Comments:** Discarded and no longer being continued. Re-written as _Milk Moon_, with possible and probable duplication of some/most scenes, though they will be edited, I'm sure. I'm leaving this up on because I might actually want to go back and compare the two someday, then crack up laughing over how much of an idiot I am.

- - -

**Chapter Four**

- - -

Since Sakura said that they were all friends now and life was good (or, more accurately, she implied that they should see each other more often with talking involved, since she was starting to get her life in order and moving in the right direction again), Kakashi had expected to actually _see_ her at some point in the next three weeks.

Unfortunately, since they hadn't spread out a huge banner across the village noting that Kakashi and Sakura were now on speaking terms, the universe (or at least Konoha Village and friends) seemed to be conspiring against them.

Tsunade, being the helpful mentor and friend she was, assigned Sakura to tutor students at the Academy - _even though she's a student too_, he thought - and sent Kakashi out of the village to escort a few friendly people home. Then, before he could even return to Konoha, someone else (very thoughtfully) mentioned that soandso could use a bodyguard during a local festival and the town was only a few miles north, did Kakashi mind taking the mission?

Refusing would be rather churlish of him and so he said certainly, there is no problem - _there is a problem, a big problem, and I want to get back_ - and managed to extend his time away from Sakura - from _Konoha_ - a little longer. Damn it.

Then, of course, the festival was delayed, and his client apologized abstractedly and pointed out that the stars had decreed the day would be clear and sunny and there must have been interference - _yes, it_ is _interfering, thank you_ - and he would need to stay for another week before the festival could start anew. The preparations, after all, need time to be made and it is not good to hurry these things. Meanwhile, do enjoy the pretty scenery and stale crackers.

And thus it was with no surprise that Kakashi returned hot, sweaty, tired and irritated with life in general, only to find everything _that much better_ when he stopped by Sakura's house after a shave, a shower and a change of clothes - he was starting to reek - and being told that, goodness, Sakura was out camping with a few of the genin students at the Academy and wouldn't be back for a few days and did he need her for anything?

No, nothing urgent, just wanted to check up on her and see how she's been doing (Absolutely wonderfully, she's been adjusting well and Ino does come over every so often to say hello), and I'll be on my way now, thank you for all your help.

_Not like it was important to see her anyway,_ he thought piously. _As long as she's doing all right, that's fine. She's had a hard time of it lately, and she's just a... child, sort of, except the grown up kind._

_Almost._

He stifled a groan and headed home with the vague feeling that he was going to a very, very bad place.

- - -

Sakura had the oddest feeling that Kakashi-sensei was avoiding her, and it became less of a feeling and more of a certainty when he left the village on a mission. He had, after all, acted so oddly the last time she'd seen him, avoiding her eyes and flexing his hands constantly, like he was simply restless around her or needed to leave before he strangled her. She couldn't honestly blame him - they _had_ been essentially estranged for two years, after all (using the word for a relationship of a teacher and a student seemed odd, and she almost giggled) - and it was only natural to feel awkward around each other.

She felt awkward around him, of course. Every time he moved or spoke, she would get a little jolt of surprise; when she'd held his hand while speaking to Sasuke, she'd had to fight the urge to tremble because _what if he pulled away_, and then she'd felt happy because he hadn't. It was an awkward relationship, really, getting back to something normal.

And so, being the thoughtful student she has always been, Sakura went to the woman who could probably give her a little bit of insight and a lot of help with letting Kakashi avoid her without seeming obvious about it.

"Shizune-san?" Sakura loitered about the doorway hesitantly; Tsunade was sleeping, which was the perfect time to drag Shizune away without awakening any more lectures of _I will not play favorites in missions_ once Tsunade realized what she had come to ask.

The older woman took one glance and set the papers down silently before closing the door behind them and ushering Sakura down the hall. "What is it?"

"It's actually about Kakashi-sensei. You see..."

- - -

It took two more weeks for Kakashi to realize that Sakura was avoiding him. She had to be, because it was getting simply ridiculous.

There was the time Shizune had stopped him outside of the Hokage's building the other day for small chat, and he could have sworn he saw Sakura dashing out while he was otherwise occupied (by the time Shizune had finally stopped talking about her nephew's three new teeth and penchant for chewing shoelaces, she'd completely disappeared), the other time he'd gone to Sakura's house to gently inquire as to her general well-being (No, she's not here, Kakashi-sensei, her mother explained sweetly as he noticed pink hair just visible in the second story window), and the day he'd gone to the Academy when she was supposed to be teaching the children (Sakura-sensei's out sick, the kids announced in unison and with very bad acting skills).

He wondered what, exactly, had given away. Had it been the time she clung to his hand, and he had held it a little too comfortably? Perhaps she'd seen something on his face the last time they'd met and realized that he was aware of her as something more than a student (_she's just a student, just a student, just a STUDENT_)? Or maybe it was a combination of the above and the fact that he read Icha Icha Paradise?

Well, shit. She thought he was an old pervert.

No wonder she was avoiding him.

Of course, it was a misunderstanding (_but is it really?_ he wondered) and this simply couldn't go on. It couldn't, because he was going insane, and damn it all, he _missed_ her.

- - -

Sakura jerked to a stop as she came to a new street, backpedaled furiously, and held her breath as she prayed silently that Kakashi and his companion had not, in fact, seen her.

"...over a month now?" Kurenai was saying incredulously.

"Six and a half weeks, actually. I don't think it's ever gone on this long." He spoke casually, like it didn't even matter, and Sakura smiled triumphantly at this evidence. He _had_ been avoiding her, and it was a good idea to avoid him for this long, after all! She'd started to have a few second thoughts when he came to her house (but of course he did it because he was obligated), and third and fourth thoughts as she realized that she vaguely missed seeing him every so often. But this, now, this was fact, and it...

Well, it dragged her spirits really low and really high at the same time. Nobody liked to learn that they were being avoided.

"But isn't that a good thing for you right now? Oh, here's the change."

"I suppose you could say that, yes." Sakura could almost hear the shrug in Kakashi's reply, and bit her lip hard. "This little back?"

"Well, you _are_ paying for both of us, you know." She was laughing as she spoke, and Sakura frowned as she realized that the two were probably dating. Her heart dipped a little at the thought.

She wasn't upset that he was dating someone - but she certainly felt hurt that he didn't bother letting her _know_. There were only three of them left in Team 7, after all, and... and it was important to be friendly and caring and _friends_.

"So the newest mission," Kakashi began, and she knew they were walking farther away from her because their voices began to dwindle.

Sakura decided that this had to come to an end; apparently he didn't want her _or_ Naruto to interfere in his new love life. Well, she'd let him know what she thought of _that_. She could forgive him avoiding her because he felt awkward or guilty or restless around her, but _this_!

- - -

Kakashi flipped through his wallet absently, wondering why, exactly, ice cream cones were so expensive. He'd hardly expected to run into Kurenai and little Hinata on the way to the ice cream cart, and in a gesture of absent benevolence had offered to buy some for them both (Hinata had stammered that it wasn't necessary while Kurenai, being the sharp-witted adult she was, snapped him up on the offer). He, of course, hadn't realized how far the prices had risen and was now feeling mildly swindled out of a little wealth.

He sighed, then glanced around again curiously. He'd heard that Sakura was in the area, and he could just run into her before she found him, they could possibly get everything straightened out. She was even interfering with his thoughts on simple missions, for goodness' sake. This was getting out of hand.

S_he's just a student_, he admonished himself as he started to think about whether or not she would be happy if he brought her some ice cream when he saw her. _And besides, she would think I'm stalking her._ Which, at the moment, he technically was.

Okay, so he could always offer to buy her some after he bumped into her...

_Get a_ grip. _You're not twelve anymore!_

So, wait, was he supposed to be thinking more adult-related things, being rather firmly in the adult section of life?

Oh, hell no. Damn it. Shit. _Fuck_. So not going there.

_Okay, let's stick with ice cream._

He paused and thought about it for a moment.

_Platonic ice cream, even._

- - -

Sakura crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently against the floor. It was easily nine at night, and he _still_ wasn't home.

She'd spent the first few hours sitting in the living room, just waiting for him to return home. Then the clutter and her vague sense of cleanliness took over, and she (with no guilt at all) began cleaning. It wasn't as though she were _snooping_, exactly, and she was really doing him a favor while she waited for him to come home, so why should she feel guilty?

Sakura wouldn't quite call her teacher a slob, but his house was hardly clean, either. The dishes - surprisingly - were few and his bedroom seemed to be more of a mess of bed sheets and clothes than anything else, but there was hardly a place to step in the living room and the couch was completely smothered in magazines, dirty (or so she assumed they were) clothes and empty coke cans.

It hadn't taken her very long to gather two bags' worth of garbage, another three bags' worth of laundry, and several piles of magazines (none of which, she was surprised to notice, held any _racy_ material). These she deposited beside the door, because she wasn't going to help _that_ much. But then she'd spied the broom, the mop and the bucket, and she'd hummed as she swept the floors clean (the resulting dust had her coughing wildly), then mopped (there was a stain in the kitchen that refused to come off), and eventually sang wildly off-key as she wiped down the countertops and washed the dishes. A glance in the refrigerator solved a mystery - he had no food, and thus he would not have many dirty dishes - and a peek into his bedroom closet had her finding the well-thumbed Icha Icha books, neatly stacked together.

She recognized one as the most recent he had been carting about, and frowned curiously. Perhaps Kurenai-sensei didn't approve - _smart woman,_ she approved a little grudgingly - and told him to put them away.

Sakura closed the closet door slowly after grabbing new sheets for the bed, insatiably curious about the books that her teacher read. She was hardly the type of girl who giggled over stolen magazine pictures, but - well, after seeing the book in his hand every day for so many years, she had a _right_ to know, didn't she? It was practically like he was _telling_ her to learn about them, and... and, well, they were _here_, and he _wasn't_, and she was ever so curious.

She was still thinking about it when the bed was made.

She was still thinking about it when the hot water boiled shrilly on the stove.

She was definitely still thinking about it when the clock rang 10 and she was tired of impatiently waiting and all the water was gone because she'd just had that much tea while waiting.

So when the clock hit 10:01 and she put another kettle of water on to boil, Sakura tiptoed into the bedroom, feeling like an incredibly naughty child as she flipped on the lights and crawled into the closet, where she turned on that light too (it somehow felt safer than reading it out in the open) and picked up the one on top and began to read.

- - -

Kakashi ran a hand through his hair in faint agitation. She hadn't been in the square, her parents (apparently) hadn't seen her since that morning, and Shizune had actually said in a way that sounded truthful that Sakura hadn't been around all day.

So where was she? It was easily past three in the morning, yet her parents weren't worried and her mother seemed to know _something_ but definitely wasn't telling.

He'd been up for over thirty hours at this point - between missions and lying awake at night, he hardly slept anymore - and couldn't even think straight.

- - -

Sakura bit her nail absently as she continued to read in wide-eyed fascination. She'd hardly expected that the book would have such few pictures, and it was...

Oh, goodness.

She _shouldn't_ be reading this. She should stop, and she should go home. Forget lecturing Kakashi - she wasn't even certain she could look at him without blushing and stammering anymore. Not after _this_.

She whimpered and turned the page and continued to read avidly. She'd _heard_ things, of course - what girl didn't? But this.

This was beyond anything she'd even imagined.

There was a not-completely-uncomfortable heat pooling happily in her abdomen and she had a tendency to squeeze her legs together, but Sakura found that she wasn't even blushing as she continued to soak in the words. Perhaps she was gaping a little, but she wasn't so much embarrassed as _fascinated_.

There was nothing necessarily explicit in the book - well, okay, it was explicit - but she couldn't quite call it porn. It drew her in and confused her and amused her and - yes - aroused her.

She touched her tongue to her lip and felt her heart skip a beat at a particularly torrid passage - _My goodness_ - then jumped guiltily as she heard the door open, then close.

Oh, shit.

Shit, shit, _shit_.

He was home. He was home, and she was reading his erotica novels in his _closet_, and she'd only stopped to turn off the water on the stove a while ago (it had shrilled so loudly she had to turn it off), and the lights were all on and the house was _clean_ and he would know she was there and...

Thinking more with panic than logic, Sakura lunged for the closet light and turned it off, then scuttled a little deeper into the closet, wishing she hadn't taken the extra sheets out. If he opened the door, she would be right there, and she couldn't hide behind anything and _oh God the stack of books is a total mess_ and why did she clean everything because now she was just _there_ and he would _find her_ and _please don't please don't_. If he opened the door he'd - he'd _know_, and her entire life would be ruined because he would _know_, and it felt like such a dirty little secret and oh shit, he would _know_, please don't come over please don't come over don't don't don't don't _don't_.

Sakura stuffed her fist into her mouth and fought back another whimper as she heard his slow footsteps; he was probably looking around, bemused and wary and looking for any sign of someone being in his house now and _don't come in here_ and the bedroom light was still on.

Her heart thudded painfully in her throat as he moved through every part of the house - some part of her mind thought _kitchen_ as she heard metal clang, then _living room_ as papers rustled and then _bathroom_ as that door squeaked open, and it was hard to breathe as she waited for him to finally move into this room.

- - -

The moment he walked into the house, there was that soft whiff of scent that told him Sakura had been here. He wasn't sure why, though he knew she could have easily broken in if she wanted to, and he wasn't quite in the state of mind to really be thinking along those lines.

And it was clean.

In the past few weeks he'd turned rather slovenly, but his apartment was usually pristine, and now it was once again - by her effort, he was sure. He smiled faintly and checked the kitchen - there was a kettle that had once held boiling water, now cold (she must have been gone for a while then), and the magazines in the living room had been neatly stacked (they were actually nothing more than junk mail). She'd forgotten to turn off the lights, or perhaps she'd left them on thoughtfully, and he felt oddly content at coming home this way.

It was almost as good as having her there--

Um, no. Shit. _Damn it_. Not _going_ there.

Kakashi fought a growl and walked into the bathroom, desperately needing a cold shower.

- - -

Her legs were cramping and she could still hear water running. Was he taking a shower? Who would take a shower before looking around for intruders? She _knew_ he wasn't stupid enough to not realize someone had been there - hello, it was obvious - but he still wasn't _here_ and... and it was the perfect time to escape.

Only she wasn't sure how long he took in showers and minutes had already passed and _oh, God_. If she went by the books, she should break out the window or make a mad dash; but that was when the owner of the house didn't know who you were. It was when she wasn't breaking into her _teacher's_ house.

It was when she wasn't sitting in the damn closet reading perverted books.

Sakura whimpered, wondering why the heavy ache she'd acquired while reading wouldn't _leave_, and praying silently desperately desperately _silently_ that he would just leave or go to bed or _leave_.

Very tentatively, she reached out a hand to open the door.

Then snapped her hand back into her lap as the water turned off.

She swallowed - once, twice, three times - and stifled a miserable moan as he so-damn-slowly made his way from the bathroom. Into the hallway. And, finally - finally - she heard those footsteps cross over the threshold and into the room.

_Don't look in here,_ she pled, and he must have been listening because he headed away from her.

Something fell against the ground - a towel, she guessed - and she could hear his soft grunt as he stretched, and the loud pops. She closed her eyes tight against the imagery that wanted to rise in her mind - _for God's sake, he's my TEACHER_ - and found that it only made them that more vivid.

She winced as something thudded against the ground - him, she assumed - then heard the soft noises and changes in his breathing as he did... something. Which was, she hastily told herself, probably sit ups. Or push ups. Or something involving exercise, and that grunt was just _not_ what she had imagined from the books and...

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut again and ground the heel of her palms into her eyes, chanting silently, _Don't think, don't think, don't think_ and begging him to just _stop_, please God _stop_.

But this time he wasn't listening, and she really wished that those everyday sounds didn't sound so _erotic_ and exotic and all those e-words that she couldn't really recall at the moment. Sakura squeezed her thighs tighter together and grabbed at her knees, gripping so hard she knew she was going to leave bruises. This was... this was ridiculous, that's what it was, and it was unheard of and he would be so totally aghast if he knew she was there, if he knew what she was thinking.

Oh God, she was going to a bad, bad place.

- - -

_Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one-hundred._

Kakashi gave a pleased little grunt as he finished his last push up for the night; one hundred with two arms, then one hundred for each arm. It was his own little bit of masochism; he hated every one of them, yet he did it every night anyway.

It wasn't bad to do it in the morning, and it wasn't bad to do them in the middle of the afternoon, but when he was tired from the events of the day, every single one seemed like a little bit of hell.

He pushed to his feet, stretched again, and felt pleasantly relaxed. He wasn't thinking bad thoughts - well, only a little - and he was pretty sure he would be able to get some sleep tonight, with as tired as he felt.

Despite his inability to hunt Sakura down, knowing that she had been in his house - and had been so thoughtful - gave his day that bit of goodness, like it wasn't completely wasted after all.

He turned off the lights.

- - -

Her head jerked up as the lights turned off, and she tensed as the bed squeaked beneath his weight. Thank God. Finally, _finally_, he was going to sleep.

Finally, _finally_, she was going to have her chance to get out of here. She was going to be able to escape - she _was_ - and he would be none the wiser, and she would _control_ her blushes around him and everything would be okay. They would be okay. Absolutely okay.

They _would_.

She forced her breathing to calm, and counted her breaths.

_One. Two. Three..._

- - -

It would be her luck that he didn't snore. She had easily passed two-thousand four-hundred eighty-seven, and she still wasn't absolutely certain he was asleep. Her nose tickled - she wanted to sneeze, badly - and her legs were so beyond cramped that they were numb. The tingling had come and gone and she knew it would be _hell_ the moment she started moving.

Very tentatively, her hand reached out for the door, and her fingers brushed softly against the wood. Her heart stopped, though she hadn't made a sound, and she sat still for moments longer. Her legs screamed at even that faint movement and she realized suddenly that her back was hurting, but Sakura continued to sit until she could breathe a little more normally.

Carefully, oh-so-carefully, she pushed the doors outward, thankful that they didn't squeak. Everything else in his house seemed to (including the floorboards, and she'd nearly forgotten about those) and she silently cursed the original anger that had brought her here in the first place. Impulsive actions were _bad_.

Sakura finally looked out into the room and realized she couldn't see much. There was a lump in the vague direction of the bed, and the little light the stars offered didn't help much, but it wasn't moving - which was, really, a good sign.

She felt her heart finally slow its thumping and rubbed at her legs vigorously, biting back whimpers at the pain the _pain_. Every so often she would look nervously over at her teacher's still form and breathe a little easier when it didn't move.

Then her heart jumped again and her hands stopped rubbing as he suddenly turned over, and she thought desperately, _don't wake up_.

He didn't, and she pushed to her feet slowly, staggering just a little on her much-abused legs.

She started to head to the door - honest, she really did - but then her feet moved of their own volition and she ended up by the side of his bed, instead. _Just making sure he's sleeping,_ she thought nervously, pushing her hair out of her face and squinting through the darkness. He lay on his back and he was...

He was naked.

Or, well, his chest was, and - her eyes traveled lower - the rest of him was just barely covered by a blanket, so she couldn't quite be certain if he really was _naked_, but he certainly _looked_ (in the dim light available) naked, and--

His hand snaked out and grabbed at her wrist, and Sakura gave a smothered little scream as he jerked her down.

_I _told_ you that leaving was a good idea,_ she thought in what sounded - even to her mind - like terrified gibberish.

- - -

Kakashi was dreaming, and it was a dream that was going to send him straight to hell when he woke up in the morning, but it was such a _delicious_ dream. Sakura was standing there in front of him, and he could see her well in even in the faint light of the stars shining through her windows, and she was - for that moment - his.

- - -

She stifled a yelp as he sat up and jerked her down in one smooth motion (her shoulder argued that it wasn't very smooth at all), then stiffened as his lips came to brush and tease and nibble against hers. "Sensei--"

"Shh," he whispered, and she let out a squeak as one hand came rudely between her thighs - _WHAT does he think he's doing?!_ - then could only moan as he stroked and brought back all those feelings the book had given her, except that these were... more intense, hotter, burned, and it was _wrong_ and...

"Sensei," she whimpered, and couldn't really protest when his tongue was licking at her lower lip then sliding inside and she was getting kissed like she hadn't even thought of kissing _Sasuke_, and oh God, she was going to burn in hell.

Sakura pushed against his chest, but he didn't budge, and his hands were still stroking and rubbing and _nnnngh_, and perhaps she collapsed onto him or perhaps he tugged her again, but she was all loose and willing and another hand was up her shirt - _oh, God, he's touching my skin_ - and he really, really was.

She wriggled her hips insistently and groaned impatiently when he tried to teach her how to rock against his hand. It wasn't what she _wanted_, and _oh God it was_, and his tongue was licking across her neck - which should have been gross, but only had her whimpering again and twisting in his arms and--

--and she was his student and he was her teacher and she really, really need her mind to come back from wherever it had disappeared to.

"Sensei, we really-- _oh, God_." She squeaked or squealed or maybe she moaned the words because his hand was on her leg, and for some reason his touch drove her completely insane. Black spots appeared before her eyes, or maybe she was just blinking rapidly, and her mind was discarded _again_ as he lightly stroked her inner thigh.

_Nnngh._

Sakura didn't bother protesting when he suddenly pushed her down against the bed, feeling almost grateful for the cool touch of the cotton against her skin - fevered, fevered, burning skin - and whimpering when he took his hands away.

Then sanity returned for a second and she said again, "Kakashi-sensei, we should--"

The words stuck in her mouth as she looked at his face, illuminated briefly - hot and intense and all heavy-lidded eyes and his _mouth_, and she almost didn't notice (except she really, really did) when he slipped one hand beneath the band of her shorts, but then she _did_ notice when a finger slid beneath her panties and began to stroke in ways she'd just read about and oh, God, don't _stop_, it felt better like this.

And then - she moaned and twisted and shook her head desperately - finally, he was _talking_, and she didn't have the slightest clue what he was saying, but she could feel the hot breath and faint movements of his lips against her inner thigh and she _really liked it_, and told him so - her breath hitching and her words halted and with all that heat curled in her words.

Sakura could feel his tongue, warm and wet and causing little pleasure shocks as he licked - first near _there_, then back down to her thigh and she moaned and whimpered and begged him not to stop _please_, and wickedly he continued down, and she swore. "Damn it, sensei!"

He laughed - the sound was dark and wicked and hot against her skin - and she protested wordlessly as he slowly pushed at the back of her thigh, lifting her leg until it was raised up to the ceiling, making her feel desperately wanton as she reached out and tangled her fingers in his hair, tugging him up insistently.

And all he did was laugh again and press a kiss to the inside of her knee and she bucked in surprise, tickled and aroused and totally enthralled.

"Sakura," he murmured, and her stomach did a little dance. It was the first time he'd called her name, and it was all sexy and dark and come-hither and she wanted to hear more.

"Sensei," she replied in a way that - even to her ears - sounded almost impish. In response he simply rained kisses down her leg, which trembled violently from being forcefully stretched, and trembled even more at the touch of his lips and that teasing little touch of his tongue.

Then he let her leg fall and he was tugging again at her pants, pulling them completely down her legs and over her feet - her sandals, she noticed hazily, had been kicked off long ago - and he grabbed at her underwear and kissed her roughly and tugged, and the flimsy cotton ripped away.

Some part of Sakura's mind began working then, but his fingers were right _there_ and they were rubbing and stroking and thrusting just a little and her hips were moving and his mouth was nuzzling against her breast, still safely covered by her shirt and groaned and moaned and let out a little scream because _too much, too much_--

Then his hand was grabbing hers, wrapping it around hard heat and soft skin and...

Her mind bleached for a moment as she realized, exactly, what she was holding.

Then it kicked in with a burst, and she shoved him violently away - let out a silent little scream as she tensed as his thumb brushed _right at that moment, right there_ - and there was spots behind her eyes and her legs were cramped and she felt something dribbling down her thighs, and _he was staring at her as though he'd never seen her before_.

Shame and guilt and a whole slew of _I told you so's_ flew from her head to her toes, and Sakura grabbed her shoes and her pants and bolted out the door, slamming it behind her as she struggled to pull on her pants - _the tears were coming and she couldn't stop them_ - and shoved her feet haphazardly into her sandals just as Kakashi jerked the door open behind her.

Sakura didn't even glance behind her as she ran out the front door, not caring as it the wind slammed it closed as she disappeared.

_Oh God, what did I just do? What did I just do? Oh fuck, oh fuck, what the hell did we just do?_

- - -

Kakashi knew - absolutely knew - that he was going to hell, and that Sakura's father was probably going to come after him tomorrow morning with a pitchfork.

How was he to have known that she wasn't just some sort of dream?

But, guiltily, he recalled those beginning protests that he'd been quick to silence, and - more guiltily - he closed himself into his room and reached down and he thought of her, and he knew that if it this night started all over, he would gladly do it again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** Do not own Naruto, blah blah.  
**Comments:** Discarded and no longer being continued. Re-written as _Milk Moon_, with possible and probable duplication of some/most scenes, though they will be edited, I'm sure. I'm leaving this up on because I might actually want to go back and compare the two someday, then crack up laughing over how much of an idiot I am.

- - -

**Chapter Five**

- - -

_Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned._

Didn't happen.

Did happen.

Didn't happen.

Did happen.

Didn't _fucking happen_.

_Did_ fucking happen.

Fucking did not happen, damn it.

Sakura glared at the cucumber in her hand and slammed it back into the pile (_snap_ it went, and she didn't feel guilty _at all_) before stalking to the next stall to frown at the tomatoes in front of her. After a moment she grabbed three at random and paid the nervous owner with a brief smile and polite thank you. Seconds later she backtracked her way down the street where she had seen melons and grabbed one of those, deciding it was better than hunting down a pile of chocolate.

_Stupid, stupid lecherous..._

Teacher? Idiot? Pervert?

_Man._

Damn it.

She blew out an impatient breath and grabbed her list again, frowning at the next item on it. Cucumbers. _Of course._ A wary glance at the cucumber stall told her that yes, the owner was giving her rather nasty looks and would probably bring up the prices on anything she bought from him.

Deciding to try for that a little later, Sakura quickly grabbed the rest of the items - sweet onion, ground peppers, green onions and a few of those stalky things she really didn't like at all - and wondered what she would do with the tomatoes she had bought on impulse. Not only impulse, but an _odd_ impulse, as though she were so angry that she had to prove she wasn't blindly grieving over Sasuke anymore - which made no sense at _all_ and almost seemed like she was trying to prove herself to Kakashi, which was ridiculous. Incredibly so, even, because she was angry with him with a little dash of embarrassed and... and...

Sakura sighed over the cucumbers, rubbing her forehead in irritation. "Can I have a cucumber please, sir?" she asked in such a small voice that the seller looked vaguely guilty over glowering at her in the first place and handed her the best in his pile and a kind little discount.

After paying, she shuffled back onto the main street of Konoha with her bag of goodies and dinner necessaries, vaguely thinking _don't crush the tomatoes_ and _I hope he's not around here today_ and _oh look, Ino's wearing a new shirt... and coming this way. Damn._

Actually, she thought _fuck_, but she was trying very hard to remind herself that she didn't say words like that, damn it.

They stopped awkwardly in front of each other, having rarely run into each other in public since Ino's first visit (and subsequent ones) and unsure of how to act. "New shirt?" Sakura finally asked, making a vague motion toward it.

"Yeah." Ino glanced at the canvas bag and asked the obvious. "Shopping?"

"Just finished." She wondered if the other girl could read her mind and all the embarrassing little thoughts in it, like _last night_ and just what the Icha Icha series was all about anyway and _am I blushing?_

"Oh." More awkward silences and uncomfortable shifting of their feet. "Well, then, I'll see you later?"

"Mm," Sakura replied without really answering, squinting a little to the side and into the window of a nice little coffee shop not too far away. Her eyes narrowed a little as she recognized _him_ and... the woman across from him. _Kurenai-sensei._ Shit. Shit. _Shit._

She hadn't even _thought_ about anything, obviously, because she'd completely forgotten that the two were dating. They were dating, and she had done all those improper little things in his bedroom last night. They were dating, and he had called Sakura's name. They were dating, and she hadn't even thought about it once. They were dating, and she'd liked what he'd done to her (except she didn't, because... she _didn't_).

They were _dating_, and he had _called Sakura's name_.

She knew she should feel all sorts of things like guilty and miserable and the lowest person on earth (or at least close to it, since Kakashi had to be worse), but all she felt was anger, anger, _anger_ and other nonsensical things like betrayal and _anger_ and disappointment and _anger_ and the driving need to break something.

Sakura grabbed Ino's hand and stalked across the street as though she hadn't seen a thing, snapping, "Come here for a second."

"Wh-what? Let go! Ouch! Wait! Hold on just a minute! Sakura?!"

- - -

Everything should have been going along just fine (or at least fairly close to it), so it was a damn shame that it wasn't. The part of Kakashi that was a teacher said firmly that this was all his fault for thinking about her that way in the first place. The part of him that was all male pointed out smugly that she'd liked it up until good sense had returned.

The _logical_ part of him wondered what, exactly, she had been doing in his room and why he hadn't woken up when she entered it.

Slim fingers snapped imperiously in front of his eyes, and Kakashi stopped frowning at his beer to look cautiously at the woman across from him. He quickly rewound his brain and played back her words - something about Kiba's rather touchy disposition these days - and he responded as though he hadn't spaced out at all. "Boys are usually like that at his age. Have you figured out the cause of it?"

"No." Kurenai swirled the contents of her glass absently. "At first I'd assumed it was Hinata, somehow, but it doesn't seem to be that way at all."

"Hmm." He sat back comfortably. "So you're asking me because you have no leads?"

She was shaking her head before he'd even finished the question. "The problem is that I _have_ one. It's you." She tilted her head slightly in the direction of the window, smiling faintly. "See him?"

"Hmm. It would be harder to spot him if Akamaru didn't stick out so much." Kakashi politely prodded his beer in her direction when he noticed her supply of juice had dwindled. "So why is he following me around, then?" He hadn't noticed the boy's presence last night, which meant it had to be a fairly recent problem - his mind immediately wandered, again, to last night and Sakura's flushed cheeks and dark eyes - but he hadn't even seen the boy until after entering the shop a little earlier.

Kurenai gave him an odd look, and he felt faintly uncomfortable when he couldn't decipher it. It was something like amusement and a little like caution. "Haven't you heard the rumors?"

"Not that I recall, though there are always several flying about." For such a closed-mouth occupation, everyone seemed to be addicted to the grapevine, almost as though it were a necessity of everyday life. He had two theories regarding it; one, that it was so prevalent precisely _because_ of that occupation, and two, because people were generally idiots.

"Hmm." This time it came from Kurenai, and Kakashi stared calmly, unperturbed by her enlightened tone.

She finally shrugged and took his cup with a brief motion of thanks. "Apparently we're dating. Kiba doesn't seem to be very happy with the arrangement." She sipped and glanced at him curiously. "He's been giving me betrayed looks, even."

"Because he likes you?" he guessed dryly, crossing his arms over his chest and glancing out the window again. He found himself wondering if last night would have ended a little bit differently had Sakura actually _liked_ him, or at least acknowledged that he was a _man_, and decided that it probably wouldn't have - though the fun may have at least lasted a bit longer...

"No," came her daydream-interrupting response. "I believe he just doesn't like you very much."

"Me?" Feeling both pleased and startled, Kakashi leaned forward curiously. "And why is that?"

"I haven't figured that part out yet," she admitted serenely, with another sip of her beer. She drank it like an elegant woman drank wine, though he'd seen her drink less decorously before. "I figured you could help me it."

He looked away then, as though thinking, and spied green eyes before the pink hair. It was probably the scowl that caught his eye and the heated glare before she grabbed at her companion's arm and walking in the opposite direction of where he was. Being the incurably horrible person that he apparently was, Kakashi enjoyed the view and ignored the voice in his head telling him that he needed to get a damn grip, because she was only sixteen (the number hardly seemed to matter). He listened instead to the other voice that said thoughtfully she had looked almost jealous, really.

"Kakashi?"

Damn.

"And how am I supposed to help you with that?" he asked, dragging his eye away and politely giving his attention to the woman in front of him while his mind continued to think about things like jealousy and hair swaying down Sakura's back - it was longer now, though not as long as it had been when he first met her. He liked her hair.

"You could always talk to him."

He blinked. "Doesn't he hate me?"

"Or it could be hero worship." Another serene sip of her beer - just _drink_ it already! - and an impassive glance. "Well?"

He bit back a sigh. "I am not a counselor, Kurenai." And he wanted to be alone, thinking about things and figuring out ways to corner Sakura - since she didn't seem to be too inclined to confronting him.

"I didn't say you were, but unlike me, you _are_ a man." She pointed this out simply, and motioned for the check, the conversation apparently over.

"Then why don't you ask Asuma?"

"He doesn't hate _Asuma_."

"Exactly," Kakashi muttered as she paid for her half and left without looking back. He did sigh then, and wondered exactly _when_ he had become the guy people could ask favors of. He much preferred it when they were half in awe of him, though apparently having students seed to destroy that image. Looking out the window, he purposely met Kiba's eyes and pointed at the empty seat.

The boy hesitated, frowned, glanced at the dog - who looked back at him, though Kakashi hardly knew if he growled or whimpered or made no noise at all – and finally made his way to the door, almost slouching while at the same time walking arrogantly. He didn't speak when he came near, and he didn't speak when he slid into the chair reluctantly. Returning the favor, Kakashi kept silent and stared at him calmly, as though telling the boy that he would have to speak first.

After a while of the silence/staring contest, Kiba finally muttered, "Kurenai-sensei's been acting weird lately."

"Oh?" It was easily the blandest, most easy-going, not-at-all-interested _oh_ that had probably ever been uttered by an adult.

Off-balance by the response, Kiba scratched his cheek with a sigh. "Look, we've got a problem, okay?"

Kakashi hadn't been aware of that, but he nodded sagely.

Aggravated and restless, the boy continued, "She's pregnant, you know."

He hadn't. _That_ was interesting.

"Akamaru can smell it, though she hasn't seemed to notice yet. Hinata can't quite ask her about it and Shino's off playing with his damn--" He paused, then reworded it politely. "He's busy training, and he says we shouldn't meddle. We were kind of hoping you could help us out."

"Because I'm the father?" Kakashi couldn't resist asking dryly, absently reaching for the cup now in the middle of the table. When he looked at the contents and realized she hadn't taken a damn sip at all, he thought in a rather sour tone, _women_. If she already _knew_ she was pregnant, why was she having him confront Kiba? Then again, the boy probably would have blushed and stammered if she had, and going to Asuma would have probably ruined her plans of telling him the good news.

"Hell no - er, no. We already knew those rumors don't mean anything." He shook his head. "But you seem to be on good terms with her and all..."

"She seems to think you hate me," he pointed out, changing the subject.

Kiba scowled. "That's different." The polite tone had disappeared again.

_Oh, really?_ Interested despite himself, Kakashi stared coolly. The boy stared back stubbornly, and a little idea began to form. "Don't tell me it's because I bought Hinata ice cream?"

Kiba flushed and glared, his hands fisting in irritation. "Well? Are you going to help us or not?"

Kakashi scratched at his hair absently with a sigh. "You know, kids shouldn't meddle in adult affairs."

"She's our teacher," he pointed out, again stubborn.

"And what good little students you are, yeah? Let her find it out on her own; pregnancy is one of those women's miracles, and I'm sure she'd hate to have it pointed out to her."

"But she's been drinking--"

"And she'll stop the moment she realizes." Kiba let it go then, frowning and glancing away but angrily acknowledging the truth, and Kakashi asked curiously, "How did you know the rumors about us were false?"

This time it was a blush and an uncomfortable look. "No reason, really."

"There's always a reason." Of course, they'd probably never guess the real reason he had no interest in more amorous company lately, but it was a curious thing that they had been so easily able to discard the rumor. Kakashi had the sinking feeling that Sakura had been one of those who had _heard_ the rumor, which would certainly explain that nasty glare from earlier.

A bit of a fidget, before Kiba blurted in a whisper, "Akamaru says that you smell different when you look at Sakura, sometimes." Then he hastily added, "We won't say anything." Then, in a louder whisper and sounding rather like a much abused frog, he finished with, "I've got to go" and jarred the table as he left his seat and bolted out of the cafe, startling its other customers.

Well, shit.

Fucking dogs.

- - -

"Sakura? Hel_lo_?"

She jerked to a stop when they were far, far away from that little coffee shop and its occupants, glaring at Ino in irritation. "What?"

"What? Why are you snapping at _me_ for? May I remind you that _you_ were the one to drag me all the way here?"

_Oh._ Right. She _had_ done that, hadn't she? "I needed company," Sakura muttered, not wanting to admit that she had been too disturbed and angry to think straight.

"To go to the chow hall?" Ino asked dubiously, looking at the building in front of her. "We can't even eat in here; it's only supposed to be for those actively working within the village."

"And the teachers," Sakura corrected absently, walking inside.

"Who, I might point out, actively work within the village. And you're not a teacher." The blonde followed almost nervously; she'd never been inside the building, and hadn't even known what it was until Shikamaru had mentioned it one day. The 'guards' (she used the term loosely and wondered if food-stained vests were a uniform here) at the door glanced toward Sakura and waved them through immediately.

"Of course not." Sakura glanced over her shoulder with an arched brow. "They let me in here because Tsunade-sama's usually too lazy to get her own food." Of course, she'd mostly just _happened_ to end up here today, but she could at least pretend it was where she had planned on going in the first place.

Unable to say much to that comment, Ino decided that it was really unfair to have perks at their age and followed Sakura through the buffet line, grabbing more healthy and meal-resembling foods while Sakura went immediately for the chocolate-based desserts. "So, what happened?"

"What?" A jerk almost spilled pudding down her shirt, and Sakura flushed under her friend's scrutiny. "Nothing. Nothing happened. At all." She headed briskly to a table, back too straight and legs moving stiffly. "Why would you think something happened?"

"Your tray, for one."

"What about it?" Sakura looked at her selections dubiously, before closing her eyes and sighing. "Okay, never mind."

"So?" Ino took some of the desserts away, setting them on the other end of the table and putting a sandwich in front of the other girl. "Eat."

"Hmm." She picked at the bread with a frown. "Is this wheat?"

"It's good for you. Well?"

"Nothing." Poking at the sandwich again, Sakura wriggled uncomfortably in her seat. "Really, nothing happened." She ignored the eyes boring holes into her forehead and looked at the pudding and chocolate cake longingly.

"Nothing happened?" Knowing how stubborn Sakura was, Ino grabbed at a carrot stick and chewed thoughtfully. "Not even to any of your friends?" She stressed the last word just slightly.

"No..." Pause. "Well, sort of." Hesitation. "Kind of. It's like a what-if thing more than anything else. Like, oh, say..." So casual, so smooth, like it was nothing at all. "She _might_ have found out that her boyfriend--" It's hypothetical, right? Boyfriend's as good a label as stupid jerk, right? "--actually had another girlfriend, and she was just the one night stand."

"Oh, how silly." Ino could play ultra-casual too. "If it _was_ something like that, I would say send him nasty little letters and embarrass him as much as possible. Play a few pranks, you know." Pause. "But it's not, so I guess that doesn't matter."

Sakura fought to keep from looking intrigued - _Pranks? Well, the cheating pervert would deserve it_ - and laughed nervously. "Yeah, nothing like that."

Ino couldn't quite resist prodding her a bit further, and crunched on another carrot stick almost gleefully as she asked, "So? What's that hypothetical thing she's going through?"

"Oh. Um. Well, it's more of something I've _noticed_. It's not like she's really said anything," Sakura stalled, digging through the depths of her brain for something plausible, then blurted "I think she might like her teacher just a little," (_but that's not me, not me, not ME_) just as Shikamaru's voice intruded with "What are you two doing here?"

Ino, thankfully, didn't seem to hear her little confession - _except that it's not, because why would I like a jerk like him?_ - and glared at her teammate, annoyed. "What are _you_ doing here?" she retorted, grabbing a fork and stabbing a few carrot sticks in a row.

"Eating." He took the chair beside Sakura - she jumped a bit in surprise - and chewed on one of his own carrot sticks, frowning as he always did. "I'm on gate duty, remember?"

"Oh." Ino nudged her dip toward him in concession of his reminder, and he stared at it blankly. "For your carrots," she clarified.

Sakura coughed wildly as the words took on a rather naughty connotation and viciously cursed Kakashi in the safety of her own mind, then again as Shikamaru hit her back too hard. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Thanks."

Ino gave her an odd look, feminine intuition tingling (then again, it hardly needed work to tingle because Sakura had basically blurted out the entire thing earlier). Little Sakura was all grown up now, even to the point of catching the innuendo in certain phrases - not that Ino had actually _meant_ that one. "Shikamaru, what would you do if your girlfriend actually had another boyfriend and you were the one-night stand?"

He stared at her blankly. "Do?" At her nod of encouragement, he shrugged and went back to his carrot sticks, apparently oblivious to Sakura's shushing motions and panicked face. "Am I supposed to do anything?"

Sakura's panic faded abruptly at that; a little giggle escaped her without her consent and Ino simply sighed with resignation, looking at her like _so I asked that why, now?_ "Wouldn't a man usually do something in that situation?" Sakura asked curiously, clearing her voice and hoping she wouldn't laugh again. She wouldn't laugh because she really, really _hated_ Kakashi right now and she was angry, damn it. The jerk.

Sakura didn't even realize she had managed to push all her feelings of embarrassment into a locked little box, and certainly didn't think about what she would do when it was opened again.

"Troublesome," he muttered around a mouthful of carrot.

- - -

Two days passed very slowly. They actually passed at the same speed all days do, but Kakashi was hardly in the mood for things like logic. There was no bulletin informing people that Kakashi _really wanted to talk to Sakura_, and everyone was still acting on _they're avoiding each other so let's help them do so_ and he was starting to think he was never going to find that damn girl, which was probably why he was completely unprepared when he turned a corner and bumped straight into her.

"Oh," he said.

"Ah," she said.

He hesitated, wondering where all his words had gone.

She hesitated, then bolted around him and into the crowded street beyond.

Well, _shit._

- - -

Sakura pressed a hand to her chest, desperately gasping for air and looking behind her. He hadn't followed, which made her angry. He also hadn't looked... guilty. Or worried. Or curious. Or _anything_.

He'd simply looked like he always did, and he hadn't even said a word. No "Sakura, wait" or "About that night" or "I'm sorry". No, it was just "Oh", and looking at her like she was a... a fly or something. Like he hadn't _done things_ completely improper to her.

Fury warmed her as she stormed her way home, Ino's words tickling her ears. _If it _was_ something like that, I would say send him nasty little letters and embarrass him as much as possible. Play a few pranks, you know._ Her eyes narrowed in speculation as her stomping steps slowed, stopped, and her feet finally turned in a new direction. Well, perhaps she wasn't going to write nasty little letters - but she could do something else. And she wouldn't feel guilty, because he deserved it. She wouldn't even be embarrassed, because it was nothing to be embarrassed about. And, above all, she would let him know it was her. Because she hated him.

Ignoring the little shiver of delight that still trembled down her spine from bumping up against him, and pretending that instant of happiness hadn't been there before the anger took over, Sakura made her way to her teacher's house with a wicked smile on her lips.

- - -

Kakashi was having the odd feeling that it was raining Icha Icha Paradise.

It was also, in fact, really raining Icha Icha Paradise.

When he had walked into the kitchen the night after running into Sakura, there had been page 32, top half. He hadn't even had to read it to remember the scene - _legs twining, her moaning, and him thrusting into her_ - and had walked to his closet, where he kept the books.

They were missing, and Sakura's scent had still hung in the air. There had also been a nice little note with the picture of a cherry blossom, to help him on the road to figuring that out if he hadn't quite been able to do so. It was, he thought, somewhat ironic that he had left the books in the closet because he hadn't wanted them around while Sakura kept popping up in disturbing positions in his thoughts, and now they were gone by her hands.

It wasn't a complete loss, for he still had the original in his pocket and carefully tied with string so he couldn't randomly open it, but it was a large loss all the same. Scratching his cheek, Kakashi sighed and wondered what she'd done with them. Burned them? Probably.

He certainly never thought she would tear out the particularly juicy passages and have them follow him around.

There was the time he was standing in front of Tsunade and one fluttered to the floor. He'd recognized it just before Shizune picked it up and managed to save it from discovery, but only barely.

Then there was the ramen bar and it fluttering to the floor as he walked out. Naruto had picked it up and gotten to the third word in the sentence before Kakashi ripped it out of his hands.

They appeared when he was shopping, and even once in the men's bathroom (he never figured that one out), a few times at home (each time he could smell her, and each time he thought wistfully of the night where she had actually been there), and he was starting to be quite amused.

He should have been embarrassed or astonished, but after reading the books for so many years in public, it hardly made him blink. No - he was proud of her, perhaps, and certainly amused by her antics. He was absurdly pleased - if she was this angry with him over the rumor then it only showed that it mattered - and had even given up trying to corner her.

No, he liked this little game too much to make it stop - and so he let it rain Icha Icha Paradise.

Kiba had been the first one to approach him, giving him an odd look and saying, "Sakura sure looks angry lately."

He'd smiled brilliantly and agreed, "Doesn't she?"

Kurenai had come by with arched brows and an amused smile. "Are you letting her do this forever?"

"If she wants to," he'd replied with a grin.

Asuma had downed a can of beer and mentioned, "Kurenai's pregnant."

Kakashi had said, "Congratulations."

Then Shikamaru had come along and given him a long-suffering look. "Make her stop."

"Absolutely not."

It was Tsunade who had called him to the office, asking sharply, "What did you do to her?"

He had lied shamelessly, "Not a thing. I think she's upset because I didn't tell her about my relationship with Kurenai."

A blink, a frown. "What relationship with Kurenai?"

And he had given her that same brilliant smile he'd given everyone. "Exactly. Sakura has her cute points, don't you think?"

- - -

Sakura never outright admitted it and Ino never outright acknowledged it, but they both knew each other knew and it all worked out in the end.

"It's not working," she muttered, frustrated. "He's been _laughing_. Who laughs when it rains porn around them? Isn't it supposed to be a social embarrassment?"

"You could always write your own," Ino suggested.

"He'd _like_ that."

"You could make a bonfire of his books?"

"Okay, he wouldn't like that."

And he hadn't, though he'd convinced Tsunade that Sakura didn't deserve punishment for ruining his property. She was just irritated with him and not able to show it, he'd explained with a smile, and she gave him long, dubious looks before walking away.

Out of ideas and now out of her porn stash, Sakura muttered angrily to herself as she walked up to her room - then stalked back downstairs, a letter crumped in her shaking fist.

_Do you miss me that much?_ he'd written.

The _asshole_. What was with that smug tone?

- - -

The Icha Icha Paradise rain had stopped, much to the relief of the general populace, but all-unknowing a war of letters was still ongoing.

_As if I would miss you. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?!_

_Who was the one tearing up erotica and throwing it out in random parts of Konoha?_

_That was DIFFERENT._

_I'm going out on a mission. I'll talk to you when I get back._

_GOOD RIDDANCE, YOU CHEATING JERK._

Sakura hugged her pillow to her and glared out at the sky, lips compressed with fury. The teacher of her past had died a long time ago, apparently, because now he was just some sort of lech who went around... being a lech, and she _hated_ him.

Naruto, luckily, was still completely unaware of Kakashi's true nature and she couldn't quite find it in her to enlighten him (it was far too embarrassing, and Naruto rather resembled him in that aspect anyway).

When he got back, she'd... she'd...

Well, she would _something_, and it would be bad.

The jerk.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** No owning of Naruto or characters. If I did, Kakashi and Sakura would have sex. A lot.  
**Comments:** Discarded and no longer being continued. Re-written as _Milk Moon_, with possible and probable duplication of some/most scenes, though they will be edited, I'm sure. I'm leaving this up on because I might actually want to go back and compare the two someday, then crack up laughing over how much of an idiot I am.

- - -

**Chapter Six**

- - -

The mission was easy enough, though Kakashi refused to think of her as he went through the motions, hardly wondering at being sent out on a mission this short and not really suited for his rank at all.

"You're in a good mood," Kotetsu noted during a brief pause, watching their client argue with the wagon driver.

"Oh? Why do you say that?" Kakashi scratched absently at his thigh and swatted at a curious fly, completely unconcerned.

"You've been smiling all day."

He thought about it, and simply gave a little shrug, acknowledging that he hadn't done very well in keeping Sakura out of his thoughts after all. "Well, we all have our good days," he replied blandly, still smiling as Kiba and Izumo returned with their scouting reports.

- - -

Sakura poked almost absently at the mixture beneath her hands, hard and dry, her attention resting instead upon her teacher. It was the first lesson of the day (and surprisingly early for it, too), but she'd hardly had time with her teacher for the past few weeks. "It's definitely easier to pack," she answered dubiously in response to a question, "but you need water to boil it in as well. You would be better off with the ointment, because everything's already in that jar for you. What if you can't find water, or have no time to build a fire?"

"Is that so?" Tsunade rubbed at the ankle she rested on her knee and straightened a little in her chair. "Yet that very ointment is sensitive to changes in temperature. If it becomes hot or if it rains heavily, its effectiveness is easily halved. This is why it is more of a hospice remedy. So, are you done fighting with Kakashi?"

Sakura winced as her hand slipped and had various utensils falling to the floor, completely startled by the non sequitur. "Fighting? Were we fighting?"

"I hear he had an unfortunate loss in a bonfire recently." Amber eyes gleamed with amusement as Tsunade leaned forward, intent on getting the answers she sought. "And from what I _hear_, it was his favorite books – which were, I might add, stolen from his house – that burned."

"I heard that too," she agreed, her words a little too high-pitched as she picked things off the floor. "Horrible accident, I thought it was."

"An accident?" Tsunade sat back, feeling slightly disappointed. Kakashi was amused with the entire thing and Sakura pretended like it never happened, giving her little chance to do anything (or, more accurately, _help_ with the fun – not that she would ever admit to wanting to do so). Sending Kakashi out of the village had been a waste, then, if she couldn't even get her student to confide. The both of them were proving surprisingly closed-mouthed about the situation in general, providing her no fun at all. "Well, what a shame."

"Shame?" Sakura echoed, looking up from a rather mutilated fork. It appeared someone had tried to use it as a hammer, because the tongs were quite badly bent. "Why is it a shame?"

"Well, if it was someone doing petty tricks after, say, hearing particular rumors..." Tsunade shrugged. "I would have to do a little light punishment. Nothing too terrible – after all, it isn't like they made his bed go missing or take all his drinks out of the house or anything. It's nothing really serious; it's just a bit of public embarrassment. But if it's just an accident, well..." She sighed theatrically. "I was looking forward to a bit of change in my daily routine, too."

She pretended not to notice the faint smile that curved Sakura's lips, or the gleam that entered her eyes.

Ah, it was nice to do something evil again. Now just to make sure it never reached Shizune's ears...

"Tsunade-sama? I thought you were going to finish the paperwork before taking over Sakura's training...?"

She jumped guiltily and looked over her shoulder. "Oh. It wasn't done?"

- - -

"No matter how you look at it," Kiba muttered, "This is a D-rank mission, isn't it?"

"Yep." Kakashi settled against his newest perch as their client argued once again with the driver, pointing imperiously at the badly-swaying boxes. "We're just babysitting a trader to the nearest town."

Kotetsu rubbed absently at his cheek, frowning. "Usually they ask for protection until they reach a harbor village, or their destination. The next town over is nothing more than a farmer's village."

"Yeah. Do you think there's something more to it?" Excited, Kiba looked at the wagon with much more discerning eyes than he had afforded it last night.

"There could be," Kakashi lied laconically, letting the boy's youth take over. Izumo bit back a smile; the adults, at least, had realized it for a bogus mission the moment Tsunade had called them over.

Even their Hokage had her selfish moments, though they didn't know what exactly she was trying to do.

- - -

"Well, if we tilt it..."

"It's already stuck, so tilting it won't help. It will break the doorway, though."

"Shut _up_, Shikamaru! Can't you tell we're thinking?" Ino hissed, glaring over the headboard as much as she could.

"Are you sure these are all the chips he has?"

"They're in the next cupboard over, actually, but can you eat after we move this thing?" Sakura looked behind her, somehow unsurprised that Chouji had disappeared into the kitchen long before they actually started moving the frame. She supposed she _could_ at least be a little thankful that he had helped them with the mattresses.

"Ah-hah! Hold on, I'll be there after I finish these."

"Oh, God. Why did I bring these two over again?"

"Muscle, Ino. We need muscle." Sakura huffed a bit and tried to tug the frame back into the room, mindful of Shikamaru's words. It didn't budge.

"What, your brawns-over-brain strength isn't good enough anymore?"

"Will you just _turn_ it already?" she snapped, channeling chakra into her fingers.

"Watch the door—" Shikamaru cautioned, without any real urgency.

"...Well, that went well, Sakura. Any other brilliant plans?"

"Um, maybe Shikamaru can fix it before we leave?"

"Using the brilliant one in a plan doesn't make it a brilliant plan."

"Well, do _you_ have any better ideas?" Snippishly.

"How about writing a note saying 'At least the bed's okay'?"

"Not to interrupt the two of you or anything," Shikamaru interjected, rubbing the back of his neck in vague annoyance, "but where are you putting all this stuff?"

He hadn't been very happy to be woken up for the sole purpose of stealing someone's bed, and now knew his day was just going to get worse when they looked at him blankly. Sighing, he said, "Fine. There's an empty storage shed by Asuma's..."

"Hey," Ino piped up wickedly. "Should we take the couch, too?"

- - -

She still hated him when he came back home, apparently in high spirits with another mission completed, easy-breezy. Sakura wondered exactly _what_ lowly form of life would be so cocky and proud of his philandering nature, and felt intensely sorry for Kurenai (who, she heard, was pregnant). She hated the relief that relaxed her shoulders when she found out that he came home safe; she hated the little flutter in her stomach as she thought of the letter that said he would talk to her when he returned. She really, really liked that glee that danced in her stomach when she thought of his reaction to the missing items from his house – and, yes, the broken doorway.

Of course, even if he intended on talking to her, she had absolutely _no_ intention of uttering a word - or even listen to him! - so it made no real sense (at all, even) that she followed the directions on his latest letter and walked hesitantly into the clearing she had trained in for so many years. There, the stone of heroes stood. There lay memories of better times, better days; darker times, darker days.

There was this place she had avoided for ages.

"So you _did_ miss me," he noted like it didn't really matter at all, suddenly appearing behind her with his arms lightly wrapped around her waist.

Sakura stiffened, one hand curling into a fist. "Get _off_ me."

Kakashi rested his chin lightly on the top of her head with a miserable sigh. "You've been avoiding me. Don't think I haven't noticed."

Her mind went completely blank as she spluttered, her anger coming and going and her composure completely flustered. "Of _course_ I'm - will you get _off_ me, you perverted teacher?!"

He did before she hit him - she swung wide and missed, staggered a bit, then glared at him over her shoulder as he stood behind her innocently - and said, "Why would you?" like he honestly didn't know.

Sakura found it hard to hang onto her anger - she let it simmer instead - and stepped a little farther away from him, incredulous. "What do you _mean_? Of course I would, after... after..."

Oh, God. Her anger was slipping away and embarrassment was sliding in and she couldn't even look at him, staring instead at the ground with her cheeks bright red and her hands wringing together in front of her. She'd never thought her fury would disappear like this and took another step back, giving him an uncertain frown and looking around as though someone would appear to save her.

The light-hearted tone disappeared as he spoke her name for the first time since a rather embarrassing episode in his room one night. "Sakura, look at me."

She looked, then slid her eyes away and back down to the ground, backing up yet another step. An annoying post smacked against her back, blocking her retreat. "I'm looking."

He paused, as though wanting to point out that she actually wasn't, then sighed. Before she could blink - not that she would, staring so intently at the ground as she was - Kakashi was directly in front of her, far too close and smelling like... sweat and outdoors and the run back home. Some stupid portion of her mind wondered in awe if he had hurried back for her, to the point of not even returning home (he didn't seem to have noticed the general state of his apartment); the rest of it muttered at that portion and generally dissolved into gibberish as she began to feel panic constricting her brain.

"We can't change the fact that it happened," he pointed out smoothly, and she wanted to shake her head in denial. "We could pretend that it hasn't--" here she nodded choppily, desperately, and he ignored it as he continued and seemed to edge just a little closer, "--but I have the feeling you're not going to stop being angry at me if I do."

_Yes I am,_ she thought faintly, and tried to step to the side. His arm shot out to block that route too, and she jerked back before her shoulder touched it.

"So we need to talk," he finished in a rather bland tone, and she stared at the tips of her toes until spots started to swim in front of her eyes. Then she kept staring anyway.

"Nothing happened," she announced in a high-pitched voice, and his sigh ruffled her hair. Her heart jumped, and she was forced to remember that yes, it had only been four days and eighteen hours since _that night_.

"So you were stalking me through Konoha with Icha Icha Paradise pieces because...?"

No answer.

"For two days, even," he added helpfully, as though she had just forgotten.

She still didn't answer.

"Why were you angry, Sakura?" he asked in such a soothing tone that she almost answered. Then she didn't, because it was a plot and she hated him, damn it. "Is it about that rumor?"

Her head snapped up then and she glared at him, then jerked her face away from his when she realized their noses could almost touch. "You're dating Kurenai-sensei," she pointed out in a smaller voice than she had intended, completely off-balance and unsure how to deal with a teacher like this. Cocky she could deal with. Contrite she could deal with. This Kakashi that came near and smothered her in heat, that spoke in a voice she'd only heard once before, soft and low and husky, that came this near like no man had ever been near before, was one she didn't understand. He was definitely a man, that same man of _that night_, and she was terrified of him. Terrified of everything about him.

"Am I?" he asked, sounding surprised in such a fake away, amusement underlying his words.

Anger sparked again beneath all that embarrassment and uncertainty, and she glared at him out of the corner of her eye. "Yes!"

"I never recall dating her, Sakura." There was an almost smug tone to his words as he asked, "Were you jealous?"

"Of course not," she snapped, finally gaining the strength to shove at him. He didn't budge, and she ground her teeth together. "Why would I be jealous? You're just my teacher."

"And a man," he pointed out, finally backing up just a smidgen - like it was his idea, not hers.

"A teacher," she repeated stubbornly.

"And you're a student, Sakura."

He had pushed her off balance again, and she gave him a suspicious look - able to look straight at him now that their noses were at least a few more centimeters apart. "Yes, I am."

"So what does that make you, when your heart beats fast just because I'm near?" he asked, and she felt her heart stop when he said it in _that voice_, despite the casual this-is-nothing-important tone.

"It doesn't," she replied, sounding as though she were choking on something.

"Lying is bad for you, Sakura."

"I'm not lying," she snapped again, and promptly shivered. When she glanced at his face again, she knew his lips were slightly curved in a smug smirk. "I'm not," she added petulantly, and thought _Sure, THAT sounded firm, you idiot._ "And stop saying my name."

"Sakura."

"Stop."

"But your eyes light up just a little when I do." He lightly flicked a finger against her forehead, and she jerked away from even that brief contact, color rushing wildly to her cheeks.

"Why are you acting like this?" she whispered, tormented.

He paused, as though thinking on it for a moment or two. Then he said simply, honestly, "Pretending doesn't help at night."

She whimpered at that, and wished for a moment she could do something - anything - like burst into tears. She felt almost like she needed to, and a lot like she wasn't even close. "I don't know you when you're like this."

"Did you ever really know me at all?" He stepped closer again, pulling her against him and lightly smoothing his hand down her hair - one stroke, two, three - almost like before, when he would be so kind to her. Like before, when he treated her like glass or the little sister he had that special fondness for.

Now it was different, and she couldn't relax against him. "You were cheating on Kurenai," she repeated slowly, bewildered at this odd change of facts.

"I never dated her," he replied again, letting his hand fall from her hair to her lower back, pulling her just a little closer. Very softly his lips brushed at her temple, and she struggled to think.

"You're my teacher."

"You're my student," he agreed, with another light kiss, this time against the corner of her eye. She flinched a little at the warmth and the softness of his mask and struggled a little against him even though he wouldn't let go.

"This is wrong, you know," she whispered. "You just like me because I'm younger, and you'll regret it later."

"Probably." He nuzzled lightly against her, rubbing his hand gently against her lower back - silently urging her to relax and stop thinking.

Sakura sighed and let him comfort her, wrapping her arms gently around his waist and resting her head against his chest, shivering a little in the evening wind. Then she blinked as his last sentence registered. "You'll regret it?" she asked, oddly amused by his simple acceptance of her complaint.

He tugged lightly against her hair, forcing her to face him - serious and calm, as though he had done more thinking than she had ever expected. "Do you want me to say everything is going to be all right and I'll always be there for you? I can't promise things like that. I may die tomorrow, and I may come to my senses and say that our age difference is far too big. When everyone finds out, maybe I'll step back. When everyone finds out, maybe you'll run away. Life is hard, and the choices are never easy."

Sakura stared at him and said, "I like romantic words better," in a wistful little tone. He smiled when she pulled away with a dainty shrug. "Anyway, it's not like I said I was going to date you or anything."

"Oh?" He played along, curious, reaching out a hand to flick at the ends of her hair.

"I decided that I hated you, and I don't change my mind easily," she informed him soberly, with a little sigh. "I don't like men who are overly confident, and I've seen what's inside those books that you read. My virtue isn't safe around you. It simply won't do."

"Well, I suppose it's back to Kurenai for me, then," he drawled, and smiled again when she shot him a nasty little look.

Then, more seriously, she looked away. "I need to think."

He was silent - disappointed? - and she stiffened when he pulled down his mask and tugged her close again, lips brushing lightly against the top of her head, against her ear, against the side of her lips. "Okay," he agreed, and she let out a little puff of air when he brushed his thumb lightly against her mouth. "Think tomorrow."

"Wait. Wait!" Sakura smacked her hand against his mouth, panicked. "No kisses. I need to _think_."

"You can think tomorrow," he pointed out, and she could swear he was pouting.

"You're acting like a little kid," she hissed, trying to shove him away. He didn't budge, and instead forced her to back up that last step so she was against the post again.

"You're probably right." He rested his hands against her hips, and she could feel him smiling beneath her palm. "Then again, you were acting worse the past few days."

"I was not--" she bit off her words with a groan, then glared at him again. "If you really l--_cared_ at all, you would give me space."

He was silent again, his gaze serious even as his hands lightly rubbed against her hips in silent temptation. "I can either pretend nothing happened, or I can kiss you right now."

Her jaw dropped in shock. "Are you giving me an ultimatum?"

His brow arched. "I could be."

She stared, closed her mouth, then gave him a faint smile. Sakura rose to her tiptoes, her lips brushing lightly against his ear. "Then pretend nothing happened, you conceited jerk," she breathed, and concentrated chakra into the fist she plowed into his belly. Though he didn't go flying like she _wanted_ him to, he did stagger back a step and gave her the opening she needed to slip away.

"And good _riddance_," she added angrily, stalking away from him.

"Sakura," he sighed, crouching down and wincing against the pain in his abdomen. She punched fucking _hard_, and he would have been proud if he wasn't the casualty. "It was a _joke_, damn it," he added sourly as she disappeared into the night.

Well, _fuck_. It had been going so well, too.

- - -

Sakura slammed into her house with little care about things like startling her parents, who had been having a relatively peaceful evening. She stormed up the stairs, growling a "_Nothing_!" as her mother asked what was wrong.

Then, more sharply, came her father's voice. "Sakura, come down here."

She stopped on the stairs, silently cursing her father's timing. She was _angry_, damn it, couldn't they see that? "What?" she asked ungraciously, stomping back down the stairs and into the family room, looking sullenly at her parents with the general air of being greatly put upon. She was in trouble anyway, and putting on fake smiles and I'm sorries wouldn't help much at all.

"What kind of tone is that?" he asked gently, stirring all sorts of guilt inside her.

She scuffed her foot a little and looked over his shoulder, frowning. "Nothing."

"I don't ever want to hear you speak like that to your mother. Do you understand me?" Still his voice never raised, and still he spoke ever so gently, as though she were going to break in his hands.

"I'm _sorry_," Sakura muttered snappishly, wincing a little at her own irritation. He sighed, and she quickly followed up with, "Really. I'm sorry. I've just had a long day, that's all."

"Dear," her mother finally interjected hesitantly, "Your father and I are worried about you. We've heard things about..." She shared a glance with her husband, and continued slowly, "pranks you've been playing on Kakashi-sensei."

Sakura flushed, never having thought of things like her parents finding out, and looked away uncomfortably. "I just finished talking with him, and... everything's okay now." Sort of. "I'm sorry. I was being childish."

"Well, darling, your father and I thought you were long overdue for a little chat--"

"If it's about the birds and the bees," her aghast daughter interrupted, "That's fine. I really don't need to know anymore."

"Darling," she continued firmly despite red cheeks, "We really should talk about this. It's important to your future, and we want to make sure that you know everything you need to know. Right, dear?" She looked at her husband for support, who simply shifted uncomfortably in his chair and gave a little mumble of agreement.

"_Really_, Mama. We've gone through anatomy in our classes, and I _am_ apprenticed under medicine..." Sakura continued hopelessly.

"We _really_ need to talk, darling."

"But I'm not - I won't - not for a while anyway," she mumbled, blushing a little and thinking of her teacher's roughly capable hands and gentle warmth.

"There are things beyond... that, though." Despite stumbling, her parents were insistently pushing forward. "There are things like relationships, and what is appropriate between men and woman. You're sixteen now, and Kakashi-sensei is a man. You mustn't forget that."

_Thanks for the warning, but I think I found that out._ "I _know_, Mama," she said a trifle impatiently, before drawing in a breath and letting it out slowly. "Really, Mom. I know what you're trying to say. I understand. But I don't think it's necessary--"

"Sit down, Sakura," her father said.

Great.

She sat.

"Now, darling, there are a few things..."

Sakura let her mind zone as her mother stammered and blushed and eventually grew a little more confident on the subject of the dating ritual. Instead, she let her mind dance over various questions still running around in her mind, now a little clearer with Kakashi farther away. _He says he's not dating her, but what if he's lying?_ Right, he could be lying. _And the age difference! He's... I'm not even sure how old he is, but I know he's too old for me._ She shifted in her seat uncomfortably and thought of how he didn't _look_ old, not at all, and especially not when he looked at her like she was a woman and he was just another man.

"...needs to be a line he can't cross, and you need to let him know what it is..."

Biting her lower lip in thought, Sakura gazed at a spot on the wall and considered the fact that Kakashi had not seemed duly concerned with things like a teacher and student relationship, or the age difference, or society's thoughts on a relationship like theirs. What did that imply? Did it imply that he hardly cared at all? Did it imply that he cared a lot? Maybe he saw her as nothing more than a way to relieve sexual tension - which, from the way he had acted, was definitely a possibility...

"Sakura, are you listening to me?"

Oops.

Her mother sighed (her father, apparently, had smartly disappeared a while ago) and crossed her arms, by now hardly blushing at all. "I'm repeating this all for your sake. This is _important_. Now, darling, there are a few things..."

Damn.

- - -

He wanted nothing more than to do things other than being stuck there, but somehow Kakashi was dragged over to Asuma's shared flat for a congratulatory party and he couldn't get out of it, no matter what excuse he tried to dredge up.

Of course along with the teachers came their students, and (minus Team Seven, currently undergoing communication crises), they were all in attendance. Ino gave him what she seemed to think were covert glares and Shikamaru really just sat around like he wanted to go home, but it was those knowing looks Kiba would toss to him that really had him wishing - really, really wishing - that he could get out of there. He could be doing other things rather than drinking apple juice and listening to Asuma spout off names for his as-yet-sex-unknown child.

"Congratulations," he told Kurenai rather laconically.

She yawned politely behind her hand and nodded with a warm smile. "I'll be off missions as of tomorrow, since we want to take no chances with her." She patted her stomach gently, which wasn't even beginning to show.

Before he could ask how everything was working out, Kiba leaned over and asked excitedly, "So it's a girl then?"

"Well, we don't actually know yet--"

_Obviously_, Kakashi thought with a mental sigh. He listened to the small talk, politely exchanged a few words with a stammering Hinata (Kiba gave him rather nasty sidelong looks after that), said nothing at all to Ino (who seemed content to glare at him throughout dinner) and idly talked of shougi with Shikamaru (who seemed oddly nervous) before Asuma pointed out that no one could beat the little twerp. Then he shared companionable silence with Shino (he had the suspicion Shino was sleeping behind his glasses, the smart kid) and Chouji, who occasionally offered a bite of his potato chips and hoarded the cake on the table.

It was really a rather soothingly cacophonic atmosphere - or would have been, had he needed anything like soothing - and he appreciated the thought (really), but he silently counted down the hours until he could take his leave politely, until he found out that he actually couldn't go, because he was expected to walk the kids home.

"It's not like we're going to be mugged out here," Ino pointed out acerbically without even looking in his direction.

Asuma waved his hand vaguely. "It's a polite thing to do, and your parents will be worried about you all staying out so late."

This, of course, had Hinata stammering that she knew the way home fine, which only spurred Kiba into saying, "At least the guys should walk the girls home."

Shikamaru muttered something about it being annoying, and Shino said nothing at all, which only left Chouji - who continued to grab at the snacks on the table and said he'd do whatever, but could he have another slice of cake, please?

Kakashi sighed and swirled his untouched apple juice idly, only thankful that Gai wasn't there to make the entire thing into some sort of contest. Damn it, he'd wanted to go to Sakura and talk over the little misunderstanding of earlier; instead he'd been grabbed off the street and nearly manhandled over here, despite his various protests.

He wondered if she would still be awake by the time he left.

Then he wondered if he really wanted her to be.

- - -

Her bed was soft, fluffy, and completely welcome after the long - long, long, _long_ lecture her mother had given. Sakura's ears still burned from her anatomically correct descriptions and other more metaphorical allusions sprinkled here and there throughout the entire one-sided conversation. Her mother - her dear, sweet mother - had actually said all those things, and it was simply _wrong_ to hear them coming from her mouth. It was just... gah.

She groaned and rolled around on her bed restlessly, unable to get comfortable and uncertain of what to do. It was late enough that she had to sleep; training came early in the morning and she had been slacking a bit lately, much to Tsunade's silent disapproval. Then again, it wasn't quite late enough to have her tired, and she had too many thoughts sliding around in her mind to let her relax at all.

Like Kurenai's baby. She knew the woman was pregnant, at least according to rumor, yet Sakura had no idea of who the father was. The only man she could think of would be Kakashi, though he had _said_ that he wasn't dating her... then again, you didn't have to _date_ a woman to get her pregnant, after all, and he could be lying besides.

_Gaaaah._

What had happened to the old days, when teachers were teachers and students were students and they never saw each other again after graduation? Becoming Chuunin should be equivalent to some sort of graduation, damn it, and she should be far out of his wicked clutches.

But she wasn't, of course, and nothing she could do would really change that. Even if she wanted to. Which she did, of course - because he was a possible liar and far too male to let her feel anything close to comfortable around him. Especially when she knew what he could do and what he seemed to _want_ to do and--

--and when he was knocking on the glass doors leading out to her balcony like she was actually going to open them and let him in.

She glared. He smiled.

In the end, Sakura stalked over and hissed, "What are you doing here?"

"Well," he drawled, looking her up and down slowly, "my bed seems to have walked off."

She glanced down, gave a strangled sound when she realized she was in her pink kitty-print pajamas, and eventually decided to just stand there like it really didn't matter and her cheeks weren't red. "So?" she muttered, guilt written all over her face and accompanied by things like mischief and wicked glee.

"I figured a kind student could probably share hers," and suddenly he was _in_ her room and she couldn't quite figure out how, "because she wouldn't want her teacher to have a bad night of sleep, now would she?"

Sakura turned warily, giving him the most evil glare she could dredge up while standing there in her cutesy jammies. "Yes, she would. Will you," and here her voice came out a little strangled as he stepped close to her again, using his damn proximity to cause her stomach to curl into all sorts of knots, "please leave?" Okay, so it was more like she was begging him to leave her alone rather than ordering him to, but if it worked...

"Nope." It didn't.

"My parents are downstairs," she said, and frowned as she realized it was practically like saying _we can't do anything kinky because if they walk in it'll be really bad!_ She wasn't given him permission for anything, she just... wanted him to leave. Like, right now. Immediately.

He was smiling – she could tell, even in the darkness – and she quickly blurted before he could say something devastating, "Kurenai's pregnant."

"I know; I was stuck celebrating with her and Asuma all night." He was behind her now, gently nudging her in the direction of the bed. "I would have been here earlier if not for that."

Feeling completely as though they were on two different wavelengths (and they probably were), Sakura spluttered, "I wasn't waiting for you."

"I was," he replied simply, setting his hand against her lower back and urging her farther into the room.

"And – what are you doing?!" Sakura smacked at his arms and turned around with a sharp glare. "Get out of my room! I'm still not convinced—"

"It's Asuma's child," he spelled out, picking her up and making his own way to the bed with a sigh. "Better now?"

"No. Let me go." She ignored the happy, relieved flutter in her belly and glared at him; he had her sitting on his arm, essentially forcing her to hold onto his shoulder or head or else risk a fall, and her insides were fluttering like they really liked the position she was in. Being the nice girl she was, Sakura kicked him in the side and snapped again, "Let me go!" when he didn't do so the first time.

"Yes, yes, I was getting to it." Kakashi politely dropped her as requested, and she glared at him again from the tangle of blankets. "Scoot over, will you, darling? I'm tired."

"You are _not_ getting into my bed." She threw a pillow at him angrily. "Will you please just leave? Why can't you do as I say?"

He stopped and seemed to think it over for a moment, giving her an odd, mixed sort of feeling, like hope that he would actually listen to her and sadness that he would even consider it. Then he said, all serious and thoughtful, "I thought I treated you pretty well for the first few years. I hear it's the first two years that count in a relationship."

Sakura closed her eyes with a groan. "Sensei..."

"Kakashi," he corrected helpfully, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling off his shoes.

She kicked his hip vindictively, and he almost fell. "_Sensei_," she said again pointedly, "Teachers and students don't generally sleep together."

"We'd be the precedent, then. Really, darling, do scoot over. I've hardly any room over here." Sakura kicked him again, then scowled as he grabbed her foot easily, resting it in his lap with a long-suffering sigh. "Sweetheart, is it the ultimatum? It was a joke, really."

Wriggling her foot and trying to get it back, she muttered, "It's my common sense. More importantly, why are you doing this? Aren't you supposed to be the responsible one in this relat—" she coughed wildly before finishing the word, seeing the light of victory in his eye.

"I am responsible." Very lightly he was stroking a finger against her ankle, and she jerked at the touch – he was suddenly turning seductive again, giving her all sorts of shivers and doomsday foreboding and flashbacks of pretty memories. "If I didn't come to you tonight, you would have been angry."

She was already angry, but decided not to point it out as he hardly seemed to be listening. "I really—"

There were footsteps in the hallway and – acting completely on instinct – she leaned over and shoved him over the side of her bed, wincing at the loud thud as he landed and frantically straightening the blankets as much as she could before the door opened.

"Hi, Mom," she squeaked, smiling as naturally as she could.

"We heard noises," came the hesitant, worried words.

"Oh. I was – um – well. Thinking. And kind of talking to myself," she stammered, thinking as fast as she could. Her leg was hanging over the side of her bed and Kakashi, taking advantage of the situation as much as he could, was lightly stroking up the back of her calf and down again, giving her all of those irritatingly _good_ shivers.

"Well." Her mother paused, frowning. "If you need anything..."

"I'll ask. Definitely."

"Okay, then." Another dubious look, before the door closed and Kakashi sat up on the floor, tugging at her leg and pressing a kiss against her knee.

Sakura kicked his chest and pulled her leg from his grasp, half-growling at him to please just go already.

He smiled blandly and crawled onto the bed, looming – definitely looming – over her, looking wicked and dangerous and tempting. "Do you really want me to leave?"

"Yes?" she said in that wonderfully firm manner she had, before clearing her throat and insisting, "_Yes_."

"Funny," he murmured, resting his hands on either side of her and touching his forehead against hers. "I think I just heard a no."

"You're half-deaf," was what she wanted to say. Her squeaked "Maybe," however, was what came out of her mouth.

Sakura closed her eyes and turned her head, trying to breathe as his lips nuzzled gently at her ear, soft and abrasive all at once, his mask soothing and tickling at her skin. "I mean, yes. Wait, no. No, you didn't." There; her eloquence was coming back.

"Are you sure?"

He was using that voice again, and she wriggled a bit, saying, "Mmm, um?" proving that she wasn't really sure what they were talking about anymore.

She didn't even protest when he tugged down his mask and nipped at her ear, or when he gently pressed her down against the bed. "Did you miss me while I was gone?"

And she said simply, "I think so."

"Sakura," he murmured, and she whimpered, hesitantly rubbing her hand against his shoulders, then tugging at his vest in agitation. Some part of him wanted, then, to just rip the damn thing off so he could feel her against him; another part of him knew that if he did, she would probably get a little bit of her sanity back and he would have to start the game all over.

So he ignored all those base urges and continued to nip along the side of her neck, tasting her skin and whispering softly to her even if she wasn't really listening.

And she wasn't, because her mind was comfortably clouded and she could just feel the delicious shivers he caused and the warmth of his mouth, tongue, breath. She whimpered and moaned a little and certainly wasn't thinking of things like cheating or society's opinion, especially when his knee came between her legs and pressed up against the place that throbbed and pounded and urged her to wriggle and press harder against him.

She did, and she heard his bitten-off groan, before suddenly they were rolling – rolling, _rolling_ - and then she was falling and impact jarred all that delicious desire out of her head.

Sakura blinked, feeling his arms tighten around her (were they on the _floor_?) and made a vague attempt at sounding disapproving when he pulled her down for a kiss - _hard, wet, hot, and she could taste him_.

Then he whispered, "Someone's coming," and she jumped to her feet, unable to get into her bed when the door opened again.

"Sakura? Is something wrong?" her father asked, and she fought a hysterical giggle.

"N-no. Why?" _Kakashi stroking at the back of her thigh, and she could feel it even through her pajama bottoms_. "Should there be?" she asked, blinking all the fuzz out of her eyes and trying hard to stand still and not wriggle.

"Well, we were thinking that you might have been worried about things..."

"Not at all," she squeaked, then cleared her throat. "Really, Daddy. Everything's... great." Even though that lecture had said nothing about light touches against her calves and ankles to be erotic. "Perfect. Wonderful, even."

He looked startled, then went on more forcedly, "We just wanted to... well, about your – uh, teacher. When you're an adult... well. We can't really say anything about who you will eventually, um, marry. Or anything."

She could feel those light caresses slow as he listened, and she wanted desperately to kick him – though she wasn't really sure if it was because he was doing them so slowly, or if it was because he was doing them at all.

"But older men... well, there are problems in relationships with such large... well, there are the age differences, and interests..." he continued, bumbling a bit.

"Don't worry, Daddy," she said sweetly. "I have _absolutely no interest_ in him that way." The caresses stopped.

"Well." He huffed a bit, frowned at her. "That's good. Yes." Pause. "Well. I'll go now."

"Good night, Daddy."

"Good night, Sakura."

She blew out a breath when he closed the door and fell to her knees, resting her arms and head against her bed with a little groan. "You really need to leave."

Kakashi was still lying on the floor, now on his side and staring at her thoughtfully. "So you don't have any interest in me at all?"

Suspicious, she glanced over. "Yes," she lied blatantly, jutting out her chin stubbornly and ignoring all the throbbing between her thighs.

"Well, we'll have to change that," he announced breezily, and she squeaked when he rolled onto his hands and knees and crawled over, smiling in a way that was all seductive man bent on getting what he wanted.

She panicked, hearing the steps outside her door again. "Sensei," she hissed warningly, feeling relieved when he stopped with a frown.

Then he was flat against the ground again and she looked up at her mother when the door opened, looking innocent and completely like she did _not_ have a man beside her on the floor. "Hi, Mama."

"Darling, we've been hearing odd noises all night—"

"Reorganizing," she interrupted, and saw her mother's eyes slowly go around the room and her brows arch. "Well, starting to. A bit. And cleaning."

"I... see. You aren't too embarrassed over our talk from earlier, then?"

Sakura squeaked as she felt one of Kakashi's hands curve around her hip, and stiffened when his head rested comfortably in her lap.

Her mother, of course, interpreted it as confirmation and said worriedly, "I know it was a bit—"

"I'm fine, Mama. Really. I swear. I just..." um, um, _um_, "need time. To think. Alone?"

"But if you—"

"_Please_," she ground out, desperately wanting to wriggle and whimper as she felt his breath even through her pants.

"All right, then. Get some sleep, dear."

"I will," she promised recklessly, slamming a fist against Kakashi's shoulder as her mother turned away to close her door.

Then froze when her mom turned back again with a frown. "Is it a little hot in here?"

"No," Sakura bit out. "It's _fine_."

"Oh."

And this time, when that damned door finally closed, Kakashi casually disentangled himself from her and sauntered over to lock it.

Sakura pretended she didn't really like the implications of that and said acerbically, "It doesn't keep you out if you're already in here."

He looked at her – at the flushed cheeks, the eyes that roved over him then away and then back over, the way she nibbled at her lower lip hesitantly – and said brightly, "Let's get some sleep, darling."

She stared.

"Real sleep," he clarified, sauntering over like he wasn't aroused – she could _see_ it, damn it, being used to the faint light of the stars and the moon by now – and settling on the bed, patting the spot beside him.

"You're not sleeping here," she muttered, unable to look away as he unzipped his vest and deposited it next to her.

"Yes, I am," he said simply, and his shirt came off next.

She stopped breathing for a second – muscles, scars, faint rippling movements beneath skin she ached to touch and _God_, he knew what he was doing to her – and said faintly, "No, you're not."

He ignored her. "If you don't get up here, Sakura, my pants are coming off."

She squeaked and scrambled onto the bed, batting at his hands when he reached for her and burrowing under the covers as far as she was able. "Fine. _Fine_. Sleep here. See if I care. Because I _don't_. So get out."

He didn't point out how she contradicted herself and looked completely innocent when he asked, "Darling, are you upset because I'm not giving you what you want?"

And she hissed, "_You're insane._"

"I know." Sounding far too happy with the situation, he slid beneath the covers and curled up against her, nuzzling at her ear comfortably. "Get some sleep. You'll need it in the morning."

She stiffened. "Morning?"

"Darling," he sighed, as though she should be able to read his mind (she really didn't think she wanted to, though maybe she did just a little), "If you're the one to deprive me of Icha Icha Paradise, don't you think you should be the one to provide me with my daily fix?"

Sakura turned her head and stared at him, blinking when he lightly kissed the tip of her nose (some part of her melted and thought _aww_), and said seriously, "I think I broke you when I burned them."


End file.
